


The Twin Souls Job

by Ultra



Category: Leverage
Genre: Con Artists, Evidence, F/M, Kissing, Non-Canon Relationship, Not Canon Compliant, Partners to Lovers, Revenge, Season/Series 01, Sex, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2019-06-23 11:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 42,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: When a trip to The Twin Souls Couples Retreat leads to divorce and death, the Leverage team must seek both evidence and revenge for their client. Two of them need to go undercover as a couple in trouble, and it's not necessarily the most obvious pair.





	1. Chapter 1

“This is the Twin Souls Retreat,” explained Alec Hardison from his place in front of the vid-screen, pointing to a set of pictures that showed various shots of the building and its facilities. “Opened and run by one Miss Laurie Redfern.” He clicked a button and the picture changed to that of a little red-haired woman grinning at the team. “The idea is not-so-happy married couples book a weeks stay at this fine palace of a hotel, and as well as enjoying all the facilities including swimming pools, saunas, and gym,” he explained clicking the button in his hand several times and bringing up picture on picture of each thing he spoke of, “they also get some seriously intense couples therapy with some supposed top psychologists and experts in the field.”

“You say ‘supposed’ as if they’re fakes,” said Sophie with a slight frown, though honestly she had no doubt at all that everything about this place was phoney, given that they were looking into them.

“Right now, these experts are listed as Dr Laura Matthius and Dr Daniel Ritter,” Hardison went on to explain, bringing up pictures of the pair as well as other photographs that would prove relevant yet. “Both have written various psychology books and papers, but neither has much in the way of qualifications. Matthius started a degree but never finished, and I can’t even get a High School Diploma for this Ritter guy - could be an alias but I got more research to do there.”

“Okay, so we get that this place isn’t gonna save anybody’s marriage,” said Eliot, looking bored already. “What’s this got to do with us?”

“Doesn’t seem like they’d have anything to steal,” Parker agreed with the hitter’s assessment, but this was where Nate stepped in to explain.

“You’re right, in one sense.” He nodded, taking his place beside Hardison in front of the rest of the team. “This place overcharges for their services, but these days, who doesn’t? Our job concerns finding evidence to start off with, proof that this Laurie Redfern and her staff are intentionally encouraging the divorce of the couples that attend their facility, rather than striving for reconciliations.”

Off the puzzled looks of the team members sat at the table, Hardison resumed his presentation, bringing up further pictures and graphs which he referenced as he continued.

“Miss Laurie Redfern is actually the very married Mrs Lauren Kendall,” he explained. “Her husband, Mr Jeremy Kendall, is a Senior Partner at a law firm that specialises in, yep, you guessed it, divorce cases,” he explained.

“So the woman at the place that fixes the couples actually break ups the couples,” said Parker, hoping she understood, “and her husband provides the lawyer to help them get divorced.”

“So they make money on the fake fix, and then more on the break up,” Sophie tagged on her own thoughts at which Nate nodded they were both correct.

“Which is bad enough in and of itself,” he told the team, “but it’s actually worse than it seems. They play the husbands and wives off against each other, squeeze both for cash in exchange for legal advice, and take the biggest possible piece of the pie when the divorce goes through by ensuring they back the person who comes off best,” he explained. “Since the retreat is pretty pricey, their only clients tend to be high end. Between the retreat fees and the shares in the divorce settlements, this duo are making millions out of unsuspecting couples.”

“But they’re only conning rich people,” said Parker. “Isn’t that what we do?”

“Only the rich who are screwing over the poor and helpless, Parker,” Sophie pointed out to her. “These are innocent people, rich or not, and they don’t deserve to have their lives ruined and money taken by these manipulating creatures.”

“No, they don’t,” agreed Nate, “especially when at least one of their so-called clients paid the ultimate price for their services,” he said, looking to Hardison who clicked a button and brought up a happy couples wedding picture.

“This is Natalie and Steven James,” he said with a sad smile. “They were married almost ten years when they started having a few problems. He was suffering work stress, she was finding herself left lonely when the kids were in school, they figured a little counselling would help. After a week in the Twin Souls retreat, things went from bad to worse and divorce was on the cards. Two weeks after that, Steven James was dead.”

“These folks killed a guy?” asked Eliot, feeling a little confused by the sudden turn of events.

“No, Steven killed himself,” explained Nate. “The pressure of the divorce on top of everything else was too much for him. He left his grieving wife heart-broken and feeling guilty, with two kids to bring up, and almost no money since her in-laws disowned her, blaming her for their son’s death.”

The teams hate was now firmly in place against the Twin Souls retreat, as it should be given what they were doing. All that was left to do was exact revenge for the grieving widow, and maybe make a little cash, not just for her but for others who had suffered at the hands of the Kendalls.

“So, what’s the plan?” asked Eliot, eager to get to the part where he could bust some heads, and all in the name of justice.

“I’m guessing our easiest in is pose as a couple in trouble,” said Sophie, looking to Nate for confirmation. “The two of us...”

“Unfortunately, that’s not going to work this time around,” he said, shaking his head. “Hardison pulled a record of the types of folks that have passed through this place, quite a few that could ID me, and some that I’m pretty sure would know you too, Sophie.”

“Problem,” said the brunette, pushing her hair back over her shoulder.

“Potentially,” agreed Nate, as he walked around the table. “Of course, the easiest way into a place like this, as you said, is by sending in a couple in trouble,” he continued as he came to stand between Eliot and Parker, resting a hand on their shoulders.

Both peered up at their leader almost as one, their eyes then meeting each others.

“No way, man,” the hitter protested. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“Me and him?” the thief squeaked, apparently no more impressed than the guy sat beside her.

“Congratulations, you two,” said Nate with a broad smile as he swung their chairs around and crouched down between them. “You’re Twin Souls newest unhappily married couple.”


	2. Chapter 2

Eliot Spencer wasn’t happy, in fact he was much closer to angry, which most people would find pretty scary. Of course, Parker wasn’t most people, and honestly she wasn’t paying that much attention to Eliot anyway, in spite of the fact she was supposed to be his wife for this con. The thief was fine when she was doing what she knew, what she loved and always had. Stealing was as easy to her as breathing in and out was to most other people. Grifting was harder, it meant being what society called normal. It meant smiling at people she had no time for and remembering fake details like another name and all.

To help her out, Nate had suggested she use an alias she was at least a little familiar with. Hardison had agreed she could use her Alice White persona, since he hadn’t got a match between any of the last names he’d assigned to her or Eliot in the past anyway. Instead, he branded her a feminist and let her keep her maiden name, conjuring up a back-dated marriage certificate between Alice and the hitter’s alter-ago named Paul MacDonald.

“I still don’t get it,” Eliot said to Sophie as they waited by the front door of the office for Nate to finish his pep talk with Parker. “Does he seriously think one of you would get recognised if you pulled this job at Twin Souls?” he asked her.

“No, I don’t think he does,” she sighed heavily, staring through the gap in the not-quite-shut doors at Nate, the permanent glass attached to his hand as he tried one more time to convince Parker she could do this. “From the information Hardison got on this retreat place, I think I found Nate’s real problem,” she said.

Checking the others were not going to come out of the meeting room for a while, she pulled a sheet on information from her pocket and unfolded it, showing it to Eliot. He looked confused for a moment until one manicured finger came into his field of vision tapping a particular paragraph Sophie wanted him to read.

“Great,” Eliot sighed. “So because the man’s a drunk, I have to play happy families with the crazy thief?” he complained, as he handed the page back to the grifter, the page that stated the Twin Souls Retreat believed detoxification of the body and mind could help save a marriage - loosely translated, no booze at camp.

“Don’t be so hard on Parker,” Sophie urged the hitter. “She’s nervous enough about this job, and it’s not exactly her fault she isn’t... well, like all the other girls,” she said as tactfully as she could manage.

“So long as she remembers she is Alice, and stops talkin’ about herself in the third person, we’ll be fine,” relented Eliot after a moment’s thought, and just in time as the door opened and the rest of the team strolled out.

“Hey, hubby,” the blonde joked, with a too-wide grin, faking a punch at Eliot’s shoulder.

He could only stare at her as if she was an alien. Sometimes he just didn’t get her, most of the time, if he were honest. Now he had to dig deep and come up with reasons why he might be married to her. Yeah, this was gonna be all kinds of fun!

* * *

“Welcome to the Twin Souls Couples Retreat,” said the overly perky woman at the reception desk.

“Thanks,” said Eliot stiffly, feeling awkward as hell with his arm around Parker’s shoulders. “Er, I’m Paul MacDonald, this is my wife...”

“Alice White,” said the blonde, sticking out her hand too suddenly to shake with the receptionist who looked taken aback. “I kept my maiden name, because I’m a feminist,” she announced, and Eliot rolled his eyes.

The thought occurred that in playing his role maybe he ought to keep his reactions in check, but then they were meant to be a couple on the rocks. That meant that when Parker bugged him he could say so without causing too much of a problem, everyone here expected them to be off with each other, in fact, if what their latest client said was true, the staff here would be actively encouraging them to be at each others throats.

Their keys and paperwork handed over, Eliot and Parker aka Paul and Alice were taken by a porter to their room. Somehow it didn’t seem to occur to either of them until the door was opened that they would be sharing a bed on this little adventure.

“We hope you enjoy your stay here at Twin Souls, sir, ma’am,” said the porter politely, placing their luggage at the end of the bed and moving back towards the door, as the non-couple checked out their surroundings.

“There’s no TV,” said Parker with a odd look as she glanced back at the guy.

“Oh, I know.” The porter smiled. “You’ll find a lot of the distractions of daily life are missing from Twin Souls Retreat,” he explained. “To help the healing process, we don’t allow TVs, radios... you won’t even get a cell phone signal around here,” he told them with a grin that Eliot so wanted to wipe off his face and probably would’ve done if the porter hadn’t left when he had a moment later.

“Hardison, you hear that?” Parker asked through her earbud. “Hardison!” she tried again, sharing a look of concern with Eliot when she got no answer the second time.

“Damn it, Hardison!” he said angrily as ever. “Can you hear us or not?”

* * *

“Eliot? Parker?” Nate tried again, but to no avail.

“They can’t have been found out already,” said Sophie shaking her head slightly as she played with the bud in her own ear. “And I can’t think for a moment they would deliberately sever the connection. Parker was practically begging me to help her with this job before she left.”

“Aw, hell no!” Hardison suddenly exclaimed from his place at the table, tapping away on his laptop keys. “They got a jam on cell phone signals, its messing with the frequency on the earbuds too,” he explained, as Nate came to look over his shoulder.

“Is there any way you can change the frequency we’re transmitting on, try to get around it?” he asked worriedly.

This might have been okay if he and Sophie were in that retreat without backup, maybe, but this was Eliot and Parker, both of whom had a tendency to go with their instincts rather than stick to a plan if not properly instructed.

“I can try, but it ain’t gonna be instant,” sighed Hardison, knowing already this was going to be a hell of a days work.

“In the meantime, do we have any other way of knowing what’s going on in there?” asked Sophie as she walked around the table, staring up at the pictures on the vid-wall, specifically the shot of the lavish hotel-style building at the resort. “A resort like this must have security cameras, this is just the place chancers might break into, to steal cash or jewellery from the clients.”

“I’m on it.” The hacker caught onto her wavelength and his fingers raced across the keyboard at lightning speed, as always. “Yep, we got security cameras, inside and out.” He grinned. “Just give me a second to get in on the feed and... bam!” he announced, throwing a gun-style pointed finger at the vid-wall as it flipped to a whole selection of black and white shots from in and around the Twin Souls Retreat.

“Good work, Hardison,” said Nate, slapping the younger guy on the shoulder. “Now at least we can see what’s happening.”

“But only when they’re not in their own room,” pointed out Sophie, “and we still can’t hear... or help,” she sighed, looking as worried as Nate felt but wouldn’t say so.

Eliot and Parker were very much alone right now, and unlikely to be coping well with the situation.

* * *

Parker was pretty calm considering the circumstances. She wasn’t so sure she could handle any more grifting after her stint on jury duty a few weeks ago. Still, at least she wasn’t alone in this, even if the earbuds weren’t working right now. In case of emergency she had Eliot here and she trusted that he knew what he was doing.

Right now, Eliot was being angry, and Parker was certain that was what he did best. Sat on the storage chest at the end of the bed, he hadn’t said anything in a while, but Parker kept hearing him growl like a trapped animal. Once or twice he’d been pacing as if he really was a tiger in a cage, but he wasn’t bothering Parker much.

A girl who was used to being in air-vents and up against safe doors didn’t exactly feel claustrophobic in a room of this size, a whole double-sized bedroom that she’d never seen before. She was happy to explore, munching on a bag of fortune cookies she deliberately brought along. If they ran into any trouble, Parker was pretty sure she knew six different ways out of this place other than the door, maybe seven, but she was starting to lose concentration now that Eliot was muttering and growling and pacing again.

“Oh my God, will you stop doing that?!” she exploded as she turned to face him, putting a hand on his shoulder and pushing him back down onto his seat.

Eliot went down more out of surprise than anything else, but got straight up again the very next moment.

“I can’t stand this,” he shook his head. “Okay, I’m not built for sitting around and waiting for stuff to happen.”

Parker flinched just a little at his harsh tone and the fact he was kind of in her face. She recovered a moment later when her brain kicked in and reminded her this was Eliot, and he would never do her any harm. She swallowed the rest of the fortune cookie in her mouth before she spoke again.

“It won’t be for long.” She shrugged easily, as he sat down again and she followed suit, dropping down beside him. “Hardison will fix the earbuds and then Sophie and Nate will tell us what we need to do. You want?” she poked the bag of cookies under Eliot’s nose, offering him to take one.

He looked at her in his usual way, as if she were crazy, which she took to mean he was declining said offer, and went back to eating them herself.

“I guess we should stay put until then,” said the hitter thoughtfully, “but it better not take long,” he warned as if to Hardison, though it was pointless since the hacker couldn’t hear - therein lie the point of the whole problem.

“Do you think...?” began Parker as she resumed her exploring the room, but didn’t get far as a knock on the door caught the attention of the fake couple.

Eliot was on his feet in a second, shushing Parker and preparing himself for whatever lie beyond the door. Opening it up carefully, he still got a surprise when a perky little red-headed woman greeted him with an over-sized grin that looked more like it belonged on The Joker than anyone else.

“Well, hello there,” she greeted them in one of those sing-song voices that grated on every nerve in Eliot’s system. “I’m Laurie Redfern,” she introduced herself, “and how are our newest arrivals?” she asked them, looking past the hitter at the thief hovering behind him, apparently hiding a bag of something behind her back.

“We’re just fine, thank you, ma’am,” said Eliot, reaching behind him for Parker and catching her by the wrist, pulling her over to the door with him. “I’m Paul MacDonald, this is my wife Alice,” he introduced, as they all shook hands.

“Alice White,” said Parker with an over-the-top smile. “I didn’t change my name, I’m a feminist.”

Eliot closed his eyes, feeling a headache coming on as she rattled off her well practised lines... again!

“Oh, well, that’s just fine,” said Laurie Redfern with a chuckle. “Now, I did call here to introduce myself, but also to remind you that you’re introductory class starts in five minutes in the main hall.” She grinned all the more.

“We can’t leave our room yet,” said Parker, turning panicked eyes to Eliot, who reacted fast.

“Er, what she means is...” he said, pulling Parker closer, his arm around her shoulders. “She’s not really feelin’ up to a class right now. She has a headache, don’tcha darlin’?” he encouraged Parker to agree and she vigorously nodded, immediately putting her free hand to her head and wincing as if the movement had really hurt.

“Oh well now, we all use that excuse from time to time,” tutted Laurie with a knowing look, “but I’m afraid here at Twin Souls, it just doesn’t wash with us,” she said, smiley as she had been throughout this whole conversation. “Now you two just follow me and we’ll have no more excuses, okay?” she told them.

‘Paul’ and ‘Alice’ shared a worried look, but then duly painted on their own smiles as the owner of the retreat glanced back at them, and waved a hand that told them to follow.

This couldn’t end well.


	3. Chapter 3

“Oh, this can’t be good,” said Sophie with a worried look as she and Nate watched the vid screen.

The grifter was now pointing to one panel where Eliot and Parker had just appeared into the main hall. A gathering of many couples, they had to presume an introductory meeting, was taking place. Without herself and Nate to guide them, well, Sophie just about trusted Eliot to keep to the story and his alias without too much trouble, but Parker had a tendency to be a bit of a loose cannon and to panic when she was left to her own devices on the grift.

“How’s it going with the earbuds, Hardison?” asked Nate worriedly, turning from the screen to see the hacker alternately playing with his own comm device and tapping away on the laptop before him.

“Almost there... done,” he proclaimed as he finished working on his own and handed Nate and Sophie their own buds back. “Course this doesn’t really help us,” he pointed out, just as the pair opened their mouths to try and talk to Eliot and Parker. “I need access to their earbuds too, else we still can’t talk to them.”

“Damn!” Sophie expressed her annoyance as she turned back to the vid screen.

She half-wished she could at least hear what was going on in that room at the retreat, but the other half of her was equally as glad she couldn’t. She would only want to help all the more if she could tell her team members were somehow in trouble, and right now she had no means of doing that.

“Okay, it’s not the end of the world,” said Nate, considering their options. “Chances are good this meeting will be the only one today,” he thought aloud as he checked his watch and found it was already mid-afternoon. “The real classes probably don’t start until bright and early tomorrow morning, so we have the whole of tonight to get in there, and get the comms fixed.”

“You got a plan, don’tcha?” said Hardison with a grin as the mastermind glanced back at him.

“Don’t I always?” Nate asked with a half-smile, reaching for his abandoned glass on the table.

For once, Sophie didn’t say a word about his drinking so early in the day or to an extreme. Honestly, she really didn’t notice as she stared at the vid screen still. Parker looked awkward as anything with Eliot’s arm around her shoulders, the pair appearing clearly uncomfortable together, even in this grainy black and white footage they were able to get via the security cameras.

Of course, it didn’t blow their cover at all. A lot of people would be wary of a couples retreat like this, embarrassed perhaps that they needed some kind of therapy to make their marriage work. Still, Sophie knew some of Eliot’s concern and almost all of Parker’s own was fear borne out of having no back-up. She felt for them, she really did.

* * *

“Welcome to the Twin Souls Retreat,” said Laurie Redfern as she stood before the room full of couples. “I know I already said that to each of you individually but it bears repeating.” She grinned too much from her place on the stage, the squeaky laughter that escaped her lips making both Parker and Eliot wince. “You are all so welcome here in our little resort that is custom made to help you,” she said, spreading her arms wide to her whole audience.

“Yeah, custom-made to ruin lives,” Eliot grumbled under his breath, quiet enough that only his ‘wife’ heard.

“I don’t know.” Parker shrugged, leaning in closer to whisper to her ‘husband’. “She seems too nice to be a crook. Y’know, like really nice.”

“It’s called acting,” the hitter reminded her. “She’s no more a nice person than we are married!” he told her, stopping from talking a moment later when the couple sat in front turned around to glare at them for daring to interrupt the speech they were listening too.

Eliot faked an apology, growling audibly when the pair turned around to face the front again. Parker rolled her eyes though he didn’t see her do it, else he might have been mad. This was going to be a looong job if all he was going to do was get mad at people. She didn’t even have Sophie or Nate or Hardison to talk to til the comms were fixed and that seemed a long time coming.

“So, there are packs being passed out to you now by our wonderful staff,” Laurie Redfern was saying when Eliot and Parker both tuned back in to the little red-head’s speech. “These contain the rules of the retreat, your schedules for the week, and some general information you guys and girls might find useful.” She smiled. “Now if you have any questions, we want you to know that we are here for you, anytime, day or night...” she rattled on, though the fake couple in the third row were no longer paying any attention... again!

“Dance classes?” Parker reacted with shock and apparently some fear when she spotted such a thing written on the timetable sheet she had just pulled from the pack labelled ‘Mr MacDonald & Ms White’.

“And worse than that, Psycho-Analysis,” grumbled Eliot. “Means talkin’ about feelings I don’t have to a guy that thinks I should ‘cry it all out’.” He rolled his eyes as he explained to Parker in his own words how awful he expected those particular sessions to be.

“Now I get why Nate and Sophie didn’t want to come here,” she said, wrinkling he nose. “It’s like a torture chamber.” She shuddered, immediately regretting speaking at all when Laurie snapped at her.

“Hello!” she called. “You two need to quieten down and listen now,” she instructed as if they were little kids, all eyes in the room turning to stare at the fake couple. “Unless of course you have something you wanna share with the class,” she said with that same over-sized grin she’d been wearing before.

“We’re just... so excited to be here,” said Eliot with a forced smile at all the men and women around him.

He nudged Parker’s arm to get her talk too, instead of just staring with her mouth opening and closing like a fish. Of course, he maybe ought to have thought that one through.

“Yep, excited.” She grinned too much. “Can’t wait to be tortured!” she told the assembled crowd, who laughed politely, assuming she was making a joke - she wasn’t.

* * *

Eliot pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on, as he walked back into the room that bore his and Parker’s fake names. He hated this place already and really wished he was anywhere but here doing this con right now. The thought occurred that he could technically just walk out, make some excuse like his marriage wasn’t worth saving and just go. Then he would remember why they were really here, that they were trying to get as much justice as they could for a guy who had killed himself because of the people here and what they were trying to do. That made him stick this thing out, inspite of the migraine, the awfully peppy woman in charge, and Parker being… well, Parker.

“We really have to stay here a week?” she checked as she followed him into the room, letting the door slam behind her, and flopping down on her back across the bed.

“If we wanna do what we do, yeah,” Eliot told her as he turned to see her lying there, the folder of information they’d been given hugged to her chest still, and God only knew what that was about.

After their meeting they had been taken to a dining room to eat. Parker had at least looked happy then, until she realised that the whole detox thing this retreat had going on extended to food. So many of her favourites were out of bounds, a healthy balanced diet the only option for the next week apparently. It didn’t bother Eliot, he didn’t really eat junk food anyway, though the lack of a decent drink might just kill him before the week was out. Dealing with Parker was always a little easier when he was three beers in; sober for a week with her was going to get interesting, and not necessarily in the good way.

Aside from the food, the dining room had started the couples surrounding them wanting to socialise. Eliot was by nature not really a social animal. He was the lone wolf and he liked it that way. Of course, he didn’t have a choice but to be friendly and polite here, and at least somewhat nice to Parker in front of company. After all ‘Alice’ was supposed to be ‘Paul’s’ wife, and however on the rocks they were, they had to seem to care for each other a little, else why bother coming to a retreat that ought to be trying to put them back on track?

“You think Hardison will get the earbuds fixed soon?” asked the blonde from her place on the bed, her hand going to her head as she fiddled with the comm she wore. “It’s too quiet in my head”

“You mean there aren’t enough other voices in there already?” said Eliot as he came to sit on the end of the bed for lack of knowing where else to be eight now.

Parker’s only response was to sit up enough to meet his eyes and stick out her tongue like a six year old.

“Very mature,” the hitter told her as he kicked off his boots and considered lying down.

He might’ve thought better of it when he realised Parker was still lying there too, having moved around now so her head was on the pillow. Eliot swiftly told himself he was being an idiot. Like sharing a bed to sleep in was a big deal, especially since the other person was Parker. It wasn’t as if anything would ever happen between them.

With that thought in mind, Eliot swung his legs up onto the bed and laid with one arm behind his head staring up at the ceiling.

They were kind of stuck here, with no comms and nothing to really do until the morning when they were expected to attend their various dumb classes. It might’ve seemed like some kind of hell, but right now wasn’t so bad when he thought on it. The bed was comfortable, he’d had plenty to eat, and folks here were pleasant enough, if not a little annoying. With no team in his ear and no distractions like TV or radio rattling away in the background, Eliot felt decidedly peaceful, almost enough to close his eyes and...

“What the hell are you doin’?” he snapped, eyes popping open as he scooched away from the finger poking him in the ribs.

“I’m bored,” said Parker, pouting like a kid as she rolled onto her side and ever closer to the hitter. “You wanna do something with me?” she asked, all in innocence.

Elliot was a little disturbed to find several answers came to mind that he would never, ever suggest to this girl in particular. He wasn’t blind, he knew Parker was attractive. She had the body of a gymnast and the face of an angel; if it weren’t for the fact he knew she was a thief and a crazy person rolled up into one package, maybe Eliot would be tempted to tell her just exactly what he’d like to do with her, but then again, maybe not.

For all that he was, a hitter, a liar, a thief, his Mama had raised him right, and he wasn’t going to take advantage of Parker just because they were here alone together like this, and the opportunity had presented itself.

“If you’re bored, go find a friend to talk to,” he suggested, gesturing for her to leave just as soon as she wanted to. “Or just go to sleep, I don’t care, so long as you’re not bugging me,” he told her, perhaps a little too harshly, as he turned onto his side, facing away from her.

Eliot heard Parker let out a sigh behind him and then a rustle of papers as presumably she was pulling pages out of the information pack she’d been holding this whole time.

“The Twin Souls Retreat Welcome Pack,” she read aloud. “Welcome to our world, a world in which we believe every marriage is worth saving, and we want to be the ones to help you save it...” she continued on.

Eliot just knew she was going to go on and on reading until one of two things happened - either she ran out of pages to read, which was gonna take a very long time, or he was gonna lose his cool and snap at her, letting her win by giving her attention. In the end, it had to be the latter of those two things, because Eliot just couldn’t take the monotone with which she was reading for a moment longer.

“Will you shut up!” he snapped, turning over fast.

The momentum of his movement and the bounce of the mattress threw him closer than he meant. Much further and he might have actually landed on top of Parker. As it was they were close enough that he could feel her breath in his face. She visibly swallowed hard as Eliot shook his hair out of his eyes and both of them considered what they were doing.

A sudden knock broke the would-be moment, and before either of the fake couple could move the door swung open to reveal one of the resorts porters and a very familiar young man dressed like a maintenance guy. It was Hardison, and his eyes were wide as saucers at the sight he was facing now.


	4. Chapter 4

Hardison looked deep in concentration as he took a tiny screwdriver to Eliot’s earbud and fixed it to receive waves at a level they would be able to use. Of course, this kind of thing took much less intensive thought than it appeared which was how he was quite easily carrying on a whispered conversation with the hitter whilst he worked.

“What the hell is goin’ on, man?” he asked, almost sounding mad though it was hard to tell with his voice so low and soft.

Eliot immediately opened his mouth to reply but the words stuck in his throat. Nothing had been going on with Parker, that’s what he needed to say, but when he thought on it he realised it wasn’t entirely true. Sure, nothing had happened, but it could’ve. If Hardison hadn’t walked in, well, Eliot was seriously wondering what he would have done. Would he actually have kissed Parker? How would she have reacted? Maybe she would’ve moved first... It was a little too much to take in right now, too much to consider amongst everything else and Eliot refused to do it.

“Just do your job,” he hissed at Hardison, taking the now fixed earbud from his hand and pushing it back into his ear, testing that Nate could now hear him.

The hacker gave him a scathing look before walking across the room to where Parker was laid out on the bed. She was on her stomach now, kicking her legs like a kid. She was still reading the brochures and information given to her and Eliot regarding all the activities and details about The Twin Souls Retreat. At least now she was reading in her head and not aloud, which had started all the trouble in the first place.

“Hey, babe,” said Hardison as he approached her. “You wanna give me the earbud a sec?” he asked her with a genuine smile which she returned as she handed over the comm device.

“What’s wrong with them anyway?” asked Eliot as he came over too, thinking about sitting down on the bed for all of a second before backing up a step.

“Cell phone blocker interferes with the signals is all,” explained Hardison as he tinkered with the bud. “Just a slight change and... there we go, all fixed up,” he smiled once more as he handed it back to Parker and she popped it back in her ear. “And one other thing for my favourite thief,” he said, moving to reach into his bag that ought to have been a maintenance man’s tools.

Parker watched with curiosity, and Eliot did the same, until suddenly a bag appeared and was tossed into the blonde’s waiting hands. The grin on her face lit up the room, in spite of the fact the only gift she had received was a large bag of fortune cookies to eat.

“You’re the best,” she told Hardison, immediately pulling the bag open and munching on her snacks.

“You get crumbs in that bed and I’m not gonna be happy!” Eliot snapped at her without a moments pause, though all Parker did in response was stick out her tongue.

“Hardison, have you seen this?” she asked the hacker who came to look over her shoulder as she waved the brochure in his face. “Tomorrow we have dance classes.”

“Dancing? As in, like... actual dance classes?” the hacker checked, stammering some over the words that felt alien in his mouth. “You? And him?” he said, pointing from Parker to Eliot and trying to stifle the chuckle that rose in his throat.

It became more and more impossible as he heard similar giggles being turned into coughs and splutters in his ear. Parker wasn’t sure why it was funny, but Eliot was sure turning a weird shade of red as he heard the reactions from the rest of the team.

“I think now is a good time for this maintenance guy to get gone,” said Hardison, coughing some as he picked up his bag and turned to go. “You two need plenty of rest, before your dance classes tomorrow.” He smirked too much, practically running out of the door before Eliot had a chance to explode.

It was no surprise when the very next second the hitter went offline, barely saying so before tearing the bud from his ear and tossing it on the nigthstand without a care. Parker heard Sophie tell her through a stifled laugh that she should go too and get some rest. She responded with a cheery ‘goodnight’ as she removed her own comm device and placed it a little more carefully on the nightstand at her side of the bed. Eliot watched as she closed up the brochures she’d been reading and rolled off the bed, stuffing the papers and such in the top drawer.

Without a moments pause she righted herself, and began stripping off, her top coming over her head first and then her hands going to the zipper on her skirt. It took Eliot a moment for his brain to catch up to what his eyes were seeing and he spun around fast like a gentleman should. Parker had taken her clothes off in front of him before, in fact she’d done it in an elevator on their very first job as a team. He still wasn’t used to that behaviour though and at least when he’d seen her do it before he knew she was changing into some other outfit or disguise for a con. Right now he didn’t know if she was going to end up in some kind of nightwear or just naked lying next to him in a bed they were forced to share.

Trying not to let his mind settle too long on that, Eliot set about getting himself ready for bed too. He pulled his T-shirt over his head and flung it into the chair, his hands hovering at his belt buckle as he wondered if he really wanted to take off his pants. Reaching for his suitcase, he selected his sweats and exchanged his jeans for the more comfortable pants. What he was unaware of was the fact that Parker was watching. Sure, her back was still facing him, but as she had moved in the changing of her clothes, her eyes caught the mirror on the opposite wall and she got a good view of his naked back and his underwear whilst he remained oblivious to his audience.

Parker smiled to herself at the view she was getting. There was no denying that Eliot was a well-built man, and she would have to be blind not to notice. She was a woman and she had eyes and blood coursing through her veins at quite a speed given what she was seeing. Of course, thinking too much about Eliot’s body and the things that could be done with it was probably not a good idea, given that they were about to share a bed, and he thought she was every kind of crazy and weird. Even if she offered him the chance of making out or even sex, she doubted he’d go for it.

When she turned around, shaking her head to clear her thoughts out, Parker found Eliot was already in the bed now, his back facing her, not much more than his head and one shoulder visible now. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he might be asleep already, but of course he wasn’t.

Eliot wasn’t convinced he was going to be able to sleep at all tonight, as he waited and eventually felt the slight movement of the mattress as Parker climbed into the bed beside him. He hoped she was wearing clothes, just because it would make things less awkward if either of them moved too much in their sleep.

“Goodnight, Eliot,” she said through a muffled yawn as she flipped off the light.

“G’night,” he replied, closing his eyes and willing sleep to come, but honestly, he doubted it would.

This whole thing was just too weird already, and it was only the first day!

* * *

“It’s only the first day and already I feel exhausted,” said Sophie, leaning her elbows on the table and putting her face in her hands. “Oh, Parker was just not cut out for grifting,” she all but wailed.

“Relax, Soph, she’ll do fine,” Nate advised her, patting her on the shoulder. “Besides, she has Eliot with her, he seems to cope just fine with this, so I’m sure they’ll handle it well enough,” he tried to sound comforting, even as he got up and wandered around the table to refill his scotch glass with a double. “You have to have confidence in them”

“Confidence?” echoed Sophie as she raised her head to look across at him, the look on her face just this side of mad he realised when he met her gaze. “I had no idea it came bottled these days,” she gestured to the scotch he was pouring.

Nate only gave a wan smile and downed his drink too fast. Now wasn’t the best time for him to be getting into an argument with Sophie about his alcoholism. He knew he drank too much, he wasn’t so stupid he couldn’t count shots or didn’t understand the implications of his being less than sober for a not small portion of the day and night, but it really wasn’t any of her business.

“Maybe you should head home, get some rest,” he advised, but she wasn’t letting go that easy.

Sophie wasn’t stupid either and she always knew when someone was trying to throw her off the scent. Changing subjects, getting conversations to go in just the direction you wanted, these were the skills she’d learnt and learnt well. She would be a pretty poor grifter if she couldn’t manipulate people, and yet she did not take kindly to others trying the same tricks on her. She certainly wasn’t going to stand for Nate shutting her out like this, not now.

“Don’t do that to me,” she said sternly as she got up from her seat and faced him, her arms folded across her chest. “I know why you’re changing the subject just as well as you do,” she told him. “And I know why we didn’t go to that retreat as the undercover couple,” she added perhaps too loudly as she gestured towards the vid screen that still showed various shots of the resort in question thanks to the security cameras that continued running all night.

“I told you,” said Nate calmly as if she hadn’t just exploded at him, “there might be people there that could ID us-”

“Oh, spare me the company line crap, Nate!” Sophie yelled once again. “The real reason you didn’t want to go to Twin Souls with me is not because we might be identified as fakes. I don’t think it’s that you’d be ashamed to be seen with me, thankfully, or even that you might have to show some real emotion for an hour in each day,” she ranted on. “It’s because the place is dry isn’t it? Because you couldn’t have a drink in there, right?”

She was asking questions, and yet they both knew she wasn’t looking for any kind of answer. Sophie was smart, she knew a lot more than Nate ever gave her credit for. She could read him like a book, and to her he was a very simple, thin book with large print letters on enormous pages. It was the only thing he could find to dislike about her, the fact she refused to let him be, let him suffer alone and hide in his dark little hole with a bottle of booze.

For the longest moment they stared at each other, her not willing to say anymore until he did, and him just wondering what on Earth he could say that wouldn’t make matters worse. They were both saved from having to be the first to break the awkward silence when Hardison strolled in, maintenance man bag still in hand and hard hat on his head, just because he’d hardly noticed he was wearing it.

“Er, yeah,” he said from the doorway as the deathly silence and tension in the room all but gave him a bump on the head. “Y’all know I could hear you this whole time, right?” he checked, only just now removing the bud from his ear.

Sure, he could’ve taken it out sooner, not so much when he was concentrating on driving back, but after. The trouble was he was so caught up in the conversation they’d all been waiting too long for someone to have with their leader, Hardison just couldn’t help but stick it out to the end.

Nate didn’t say a word, just picked up his glass and the scotch bottle as well, with a look that was more than a little defiant, before stalking out of the room.

“Doesn’t matter what you heard, Hardison,” said Sophie, though her eyes remained on the mastermind as he walked out and slammed the door. “It’s no secret he’s a drunk!” she yelled behind Nate, for all the good it did.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun through a crack in the blinds caught Eliot right across the eyes and woke him. It took him a second to recall where he was and why, and when he did remember he almost wished he hadn’t. On the grift at a couples retreat with Parker posing as his wife, it was hardly his ideal way to spend time, but they had a job to do and if this was what it took, well, he’d been if far worse situations, not least having to watch Sophie in Death of a Salesman...

It was only as he brought one hand to his face, rubbing sleep from his eyes and pushing his hair aside that Eliot realised he had only the one arm that would actually move. Glancing down, he was more than a little surprised to find that whilst his right arm was free, his left was trapped under the soft, warm, and decidedly female form of Parker.

They certainly hadn’t gone to sleep cuddled up together, in fact Eliot knew they had been back to back on opposite edges of the bed, and yet here they were now, both in the middle, his arm around her body which was tucked up next to him, her head resting on his chest. His immediate reaction ought to be to move, to wake her up and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, but Eliot didn’t have it in him to be so harsh right now.

Parker was crazy, there was no other explanation for the way she usually behaved, and yet right now, sleeping on his shoulder like this, she looked like some kind of angel to the hitter. It was the strangest feeling to Eliot, and not just because he was lying here with Parker. He really didn’t get to do this with anyone, just lie in peace and silence, holding onto a woman he cared about, watching her sleep. He had no problem with the fact he cared about the thief, she was on his team, and he had to care what happened to all the people who worked at Leverage Consultancy. There was no way he cared any more than that of course, or so he told himself, wiping the smile from his face that had crept across his lips without his really noticing, just as Parker began to stir.

She made a little sighing sound as she came to, her eyes fluttering open and taking in the world around her. Parker was sure she hadn’t slept this well in a very long time, had never been this comfortable, which was why she started frowning a second later when she realised this wasn’t home. Her pillow was warm but not entirely soft and it took just a second for her to realise there was an arm holding onto her, not in a bad way, but still it was there.

A squeak emitted from her lips as she sat up fast, the blankets falling away from her body and revealing more than Eliot had been prepared for.

“Geez, Parker!” he complained, grabbing the covers and covering her assets for her. “First you give me a dead arm and then...” He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d been going to say, but given the topic he was in he was only serving in keeping his mind on things he really didn’t need to be focusing on. “I already hate this job,” he sniped, as he moved to climb out of bed, putting his back to the thief.

Parker blinked a couple of times as her brain caught up with her body. She had slept in Eliot’s arms, using his muscley chest for a pillow, and it had been nice. That was a little weird, but she wasn’t about to start worrying about it. They had a job to do, whether they liked it or not (and Eliot clearly didn’t) so that was where her brain needed to be if she was going to pull off her character and all.

“Alice White, vegetarian, feminist, happy person,” she recited to herself as she swung her legs out of the bed and let go of the covers as she stretched her arms high above her head.

Eliot glanced over his shoulder a moment and then averted his eyes again immediately he realised that Parker was still very much naked and could turn around herself at any second.

“Nate, Sophie?” the thief heard her partner say, clearly testing the earbud to see if it was working and if the rest of the team were up and at ‘em yet.

“Hey, man,” replied Hardison. “They ain’t here yet, but I got your back if you need anything.”

“I’m hungry,” Parker declared through her own earbud now, the only thing she was wearing, Eliot realised, when he made a wrong assumption and turned to look at her.

“Then put on some clothes, or they’re not gonna let you in the dining room,” he advised her.

“Hey, hold on a sec!” said Hardison in his ear. “Is she not...? Do you not have on any clothes, Parker?” he checked, as Eliot rolled his eyes.

“Like anybody sleeps in clothes!” scoffed Parker, pulling on her jeans and a shirt now that she was up. “And they call me crazy,” she muttered, not noticing the way Eliot was looking at her now, like she really was completely off her axle.

Of course it was easier than letting himself think too much on the fact he had woken up with her naked body pressed against him. Those thoughts would lead to absolutely no good.

Before tonight he would have to make sure he at least convinced her to wear panties and a T-shirt in bed, or this job was going to get way out of hand. He was only a man after all, and he did have limits, which he could use not being tested right now, especially not by Parker!

* * *

Sophie and Nate were headed into the office at the same time, meeting on the pavement outside the building where Leverage Consultancy was based. Neither looked as if they’d slept all that well, though the grifter was better at covering exhaustion than the mastermind ever was.

“Morning,” she said, with an attempt at a smile that didn’t really happen.

“It is,” Nate agreed with a careful nod, mindful of disturbing the ache in it as he opened up the front door and ushered Sophie inside like a gentleman should.

They headed for the elevator together, stepping in through the opening doors almost as one. Nate hit the button and up they went, still in silence.

“Look, Nate,” Sophie sighed after a couple of floors, unable to stand this any longer. “I’m sorry, okay? I know I got a little over-dramatic last night, I just-”

“Don’t worry about it, forget it,” he told her, cutting in before she could get emotional.

The last thing Nate wanted right now was to have to deal with Sophie caring. It was so much easier to sweep his drinking under the rug and pretend it wasn’t a problem. It was, and he knew it, but pretending suited him better right now. If Sophie started caring too much, he would have to think and talk about things he’d sooner forget, and that wasn’t just his drink problem.

“I don’t want to forget it,” she told him, a little mad that he would cut her off like that when she was trying to apologise. “I want to tell you that I know I lost my temper and it’s really not my place to tell you when you can and cannot drink,” she said sadly as the elevator reached the correct floor and the doors opened.

Nate moved to make a hasty exit, but never got the chance. There it was, the hand on his arm, the sad and sympathetic look in her eyes that he’d tried so hard to avoid. Sophie was just being a good friend and he knew it, but at this point, he couldn’t deal.

“I get it, Soph, you care,” he said, perhaps a little too harshly as he looked back at her, “but right now, we have a job to do so... just, let it go,” he advised, tugging his arm free from her grasp and heading into the offices.

The pair of them might’ve continued their discussion regardless, after all Sophie wasn’t always great at letting things lie, but both hers and Nate’s attention were immediately taken away from any other topic as they stepped into the boardroom and found Hardison at the table, raving too loudly about the most unlikely subject.

“I don’t care if you think it’s crazy, Parker!” he was yelling through his earbud. “It ain’t right you being naked with Eliot!”

“Something we should know about, guys?” asked Nate as he pushed his own comms device into his ear, and Sophie’s eyes widened all the further when she did the same just as Eliot let rip with a string of curses.

Perhaps they really should focus on the job, because it didn’t exactly sound as if it was going well so far!

* * *

“Buenos dias, ladies y gentlemen,” said the dance teacher as she ushered a group of half a dozen couples into her studio. “My name is Señora Alvarez and I will be teaching you all... to tango,” she said with a flourish, smiling widely, almost evilly Parker thought, but the this whole dancing thing didn’t exactly thrill her anyway.

Eliot looked suprisingly relaxed about the whole thing, which surprised his partner, after all, he had seemed pretty mad about it before. That was nothing new since the hitter was often angry about most things, including Parker sleeping naked apparently. She still didn’t get why it was such a big deal to everybody but nobody was willing to talk to her about it anymore so she just let it go.

As the six couples spread out a little, Señora Alvarez began walking around, putting everybody into a correct dancing hold and explaining the importance of her class in a thick Spanish accent.

“Now, the reason for the dancing classes here are three fold,” she said as she moved, pulling one woman’s back straight, tilting another man’s chin up as she walked around. “Number one, we have to trust in each other and work as team, moving as if one body. Number two, it takes our mind away from daily task and other thing, focuses everything on each other,” she explained as she passed the husband and wife next to Eliot and Parker.

The undercover couple were pretty much ready for this. Parker hadn’t a clue what she was doing but Eliot had manoeuvred her where she needed to be with one hand on his shoulder and one clasped in his own, his other hand at her waist. It wasn’t helping that they could hear Hardison in their ear calling for Nate and Sophie to ‘hurry because the fun was just about to start’. Eliot was pretty sure he had a bowl of popcorn ready for the occasion too.

“Am I the only one who remembers we’re here to do a job?” he ground out through gritted teeth so only Parker and those in his ear would hear him.

“And Number Three,” the teacher continued as she reached ‘Paul and Alice’ who faked smiles at her immediately they noticed she was there. “The dance brings us closer together,” she said with a smile that meant more than it should when she looked Eliot’s way.

Parker let out a yelp as she felt a hand on her ass, and realised suddenly it was Señora Alvarez herself, pushing the blonde closer to her ‘husband’ until their faces were practically touching. She blinked hard finding this whole thing a little too much if she were honest.

Being in close proximity with other people made Parker want to run and Eliot want to lash out, so the two of them being up close and personal to each other like this was hardly ideal. Still, it was for the job, as Eliot himself had just said, and so they would have to make the best of a bad situation.

“Okay, we start with you all showing me how you move!” said Señora Alvarez with a further flourish as she flipped a switch on the stereo and intense traditional tango music filled the room. “Everybody feel the music,” she said, clearly with a passion for both the music itself and the dance it ought to inspire.

“Okay,” said Eliot in a low voice, as he looked sideways at the other couples and then back at Parker. “Follow my lead,” he told her, as he began to move his feet.

The little thief looked like a startled rabbit in the headlights of a Mac truck for a second, but then seemed to realise he was just asking her to walk and that wasn’t so hard. Parker tried not to concentrate on the closeness between them and instead looked at her feet and his as she tried to match her steps with Eliot’s own. It came pretty easily to her, which was a surprise, but not as much of a shock as realising Eliot could really dance.

“How are you so good at this?” she asked as he expertly spun her around and back into his waiting arms without ever missing a beat.

“It’s all about rhythm and timing, darlin’,” he told her with a smile, unable to help but be a little smug when the rest of the couples in the room seemed to be struggling so badly. “Same things you gotta have to fight like I do,” he said pulling her in close, not letting his mind linger too long on the fact her body was pressed up against his own... again.

“Don’t look down,” he told her, moving a hand to her face to make her meet his eyes.

It immediately seemed he’d made a mistake as the swell of the music and the position they were in blanked his mind of anything else.

“We’re not moving,” Parker noticed then, and Eliot had to shake himself to remember what he was doing.

“I know,” he said with a nod. “You trust me, right?” he checked and though Parker hadn’t a clue where it came from she nodded a positive response to his question and quite literally put herself in his hands, as the music kicked up a gear and so did the dance.

* * *

“Oh my God, Nate, look at this!” insisted Sophie, jostling his shoulder and taking him away from the paperwork about the retreat that he’d been pouring over.

She and Hardison were sat up on the table, both with their hands in a large communal bowl of popcorn as they watched the dance class, blown up big on the vid screen.

“What am I... looking at?” asked the mastermind, his question becoming disjointed as his eyes answered the question for him. “Wow,” he said, quite taken aback as he watched Eliot and Parker dance.

They looked almost like professionals, and if not for Parker’s occasional stumble or look of concern as she was dropped into a dramatic dip or twirl, they might’ve passed for it, if needed. Perhaps it ought to have occurred to the rest of the team that two people who did jobs that required excellent timing and precision to do their work would be good at dancing, but it really hadn’t until now.

“Man, they got the mad skillz,” declared Hardison as he watched his friends dance.

The rest of the couples had all but given up by this time, and were focusing on the beautiful moves of Alice White and Paul MacDonald. It was only when Nate spoke up that anybody realised this might not be a good thing.

“Yeah, so what happened to being undercover and inconspicuous?” he said, more into his earbud than to those in the room with him.

Hearing that almost made Eliot drop Parker completely as he dipped her on one arm as the song ended. There was a round of applause from the other five couples, as well as from two people that only the couple in question could hear. The truth was, neither Eliot nor Parker were entirely paying attention as he let her back up onto her feet and she continued to stare at him, wide eyed and giddy. She never danced with a guy like that before and it was quite the experience. To be so completely attuned to another persons movements like that, almost like they became one person. It was amazing to Parker, not as amazing as jumping off a building or anything, but pretty damn good considering she really hadn’t wanted to be here in the first place.

“Brava, brava!” Señora Alvarez applauded too. “You are magnifico, magnifico couple!” she declared excitedly. “An inspiration to all,” she said, arms spread wide to the room.

Eliot looked suitably embarrassed, laughing a little at how dumb this whole situation had become, whilst Parker just stood like a block ornament with his arm around her back still. She wasn’t quite sure what had just happened and certainly didn’t know how to react to all these people being nice to her.

“I guess we’re just naturals or something,” said Eliot, waving away all the attention like it was no big deal. “Right, darlin’?” he prompted Parker to speak both with his words and a shove that jolted her from her silence.

“Yes! Yes, we are just natural dancers,” she lied with a too-fake smile that thankfully wasn’t noticed as the teacher moved on with her class.

“Excuse me,” said a soft voice and both Eliot and Parker turned at the same moment to find another couple close by whispering at them. “Hi, we just wanted to say, you two are amazing,” said the woman, a brunette of not dissimilar size and look to Sophie but not half so pretty or well spoken.

“Oh, no,” said Parker, still grinning too much. “We’re not so great.”

“Well, Bethan trod on my toes three times because she was watching you two instead of concentrating on our own dancing!” said the man who was apparently her husband.

“Roger, stop it, you’re embarrassing me!” Bethan exclaimed, socking him in the shoulder.

Eliot and Parker just turned away, as Señora Alvarez demanded everyone’s attention. Of course it wasn’t exactly easy for the undercover couple to listen, as a whole lot of chattering was going on inside their heads as well.

“Will you guys keep it down,” said Parker in a harsh whisper. “We’re trying to dance here!” she complained.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hardison called back to her as he sat at the table now, hammering away at keys on his laptop. “I guess your fancy dancing is more important than the fact I just ID-ed those two nice folks that was talking to you,” he said, Nate and Sophie both peering over his shoulders by now. “My facial recognition software just picked them up. They were at the retreat months ago, the same time as our client and her husband,” he explained.

“And it would seem they went by different names then,” sighed Nate, putting his finger to his ear as he spoke through the comms to Eliot and Parker. “Guys, I don’t think you’re the only undercover couple at Twin Souls.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Please tell me we have some kind of plan to get this done and get out of here,” said Eliot as he burst into the room he and Parker were sharing, practically yelling through his earbud.

“Take it easy, Eliot,” replied Nate, as Parker came wandering in behind her ‘husband’ and closed the door behind them both. “We’re still collating data, coming up with a plan.”

“Well, you better make it fast,” said the blonde thief as she dropped down onto the end of the bed. “We have lunch in ten minutes and I’m hungry,” she declared, her arm going across her stomach and a pout settling on her lips.

Eliot turned to glare at her for going off topic, before realising she did at least have a point. If they didn’t go to lunch when they were supposed to somebody was going to notice. They’d already drawn attention to themselves twice, the first time in the induction meeting and now today with their over-achieving in dance class.

“I’m not surprised, girl,” said Hardison, with a grin the fake couple could just imagine. “You two must’ve burned a whole bunch of calories bustin’ your moves.”

“You don’t shut up, I’m gonna bust your ass when I get outta here,” Eliot told him with that menacing tone he liked to use so much.

“Okay, boys, that’s enough,” Sophie cut in, in her best stern and motherly voice. “Although I have to say, I was very impressed with the dancing guys. I had no idea you two could move like that.”

“Neither did I,” said Parker with a giddy kind of a giggle as she looked Eliot’s way.

He didn’t want to smile right now, but somehow he couldn’t help himself. It had been pretty cool to show off some skills he hadn’t used in a good long while, and he’d managed to impress not just the teacher and other couples in the class, but Parker as well. She’d done well to keep up with him, and dancing with her hadn’t been half so bad as he expected. She could move, he ought to have known she would be able to, and being close to a woman with a body like hers was hardly a chore, though he had made it seem that way. It wouldn’t do to let her get comfortable being so close to him, at arms length was better for everybody, or so Eliot always thought.

“Okay, here’s what we have so far,” said Nate suddenly. “Bethan and Roger Matthews used to be Lorraine and Thomas Stobart when they were at the retreat with our client and her husband. The question then becomes, why?”

“Now I can spend hours trying to hack into their staff database,” said Hardison. “Try and figure out if these two are working from the inside for some reason, but it’d be easier if you guys could help a brother out.”

“If they keep changing names how will you find them?” asked Parker curiously, looking at Eliot since he was the only person there but more so talking to the hacker in her ear.

“These folks got created identities both times they went into the retreat,” he explained. “Different names, but same dates of birth, date of marriage, all that good stuff,” he went on. “Staff records would hold some of this info so I can check for a match and get real names for these folk, maybe do some more digging on them.”

“What do you need us to do?” asked Eliot curiously.

“You remember the bag of tricks I gave you when you went in there, man?” asked Hardison, and the hitter went straight to the locker by the bed, pulling said bag out and tipping the contents out onto the bed between himself and Parker.

All kinds of electrical gadgets scattered across the blankets and the little thief was immediately pawing through them, trying to figure out what each one did. Eliot asked Hardison again what it was they needed.

“There should be a little blue flashdrive,” he said, as the hitter started looking through cables, battery packs, and unidentifiable electrical items, getting more and more frustrated that he couldn’t find what he was looking for.

It didn’t come as a huge surprise when he glanced up and realised what he was searching for was already in Parker’s hand. It only served to make him more angry, as such things usually did.

“You want me to break into an office or something?” she asked, all innocence as if she hadn’t even noticed she made her fake husband mad - maybe she really hadn’t.

“From what I can tell, the main staff office with the computers is just around the corner from the dining hall,” said Sophie thoughtfully.

“Parker,” Nate took over then. “You think you can slip away from the lunch table, break into the office, and get the flashdrive plugged into one of the computers?” he asked her. “That should allow Hardison to get the connection he needs to download all the information we want.”

“Sure, that’s easy.” Parker shrugged, slipping the flashdrive into her pocket, whilst Eliot tidied away the mess of other gadgets and stuffed the bag back into the bedside locker.

“Okay, you two go be Paul and Alice,” Nate instructed them, as he watched the vid screen , waiting for his team-mates to appear in the hallway outside of their room. “We’ll be right here if you need us.”

* * *

It seemed that whoever this Bethan and Roger were, they were taking quite an interest in Paul and Alice. Just as soon as Eliot and Parker cleared the line with their trays of food, they were being waved over to sit with their new ‘friends’. Though neither were impressed, they smiled graciously and headed on over, sitting down opposite the other couple.

Parker tried to smile through her annoyance at being landed with the vegetarian option for lunch again. Unfortunately, thanks to her aliases preferences, her meals were specially prepared each day, giving her no chance to ‘be bad’ and eat meat. Eliot was more than happy with his steak and vegetables, paying no mind to the pouting of his ‘wife’.

“Honey, are you okay?” asked Bethan, reaching a hand across the table to ‘Alice’ who immediately retracted her hand before contact could be made.

“No,” she said sharply, looking at ‘Paul’ who looked a little spooked, presumably worried she was going to blow their cover with some dumb outburst. “I... I don’t feel so good,” she lied. “I think it’s probably the smell of the meat,” she added, thinking fast and dry retching some by now. “Oh, I think I’m gonna be sick,” she declared then, jumping up from her seat and bolting for the door.

“Maybe you should go with her, Beth,” Roger suggested, but this time it was Eliot’s turn to over-react and risk the con.

“No,” he said too suddenly as he practically leapt up from his seat. “I mean, no, Alice would be embarrassed if you saw her like that,” he covered fast, even as Nate started rambling in his ear about keeping calm and just getting out. “I’ll go,” he said forcing a smile, not at all amused that Parker hadn’t even let him eat half his meal before she ran out.

“There’s something wrong with her,” he muttered to himself as he hurried out the door.

“Eliot, mind your temper,” Sophie warned him. “Parker’s just doing what needs to be done for the con.”

“You know where you’re headed?” checked Hardison, watching as Eliot looked left then right before picking his direction.

“I got it,” the hitter confirmed as he checked no-one was looking and headed through the unlocked door up ahead that only staff ought to pass through. He found Parker on the other side, picking the lock to the office Hardison had pointed out to them before. She was in before he ever had a chance to ask how long it would take.

A wordless exchange of a simple look confirmed that Eliot was going to play look out while the thief did her thing inside the office. In their ears, both of the pair heard Nate tell Parker she should also take a look around if she had the chance, see if she could find any paperwork regarding Laurie Redfern’s divorce lawyer husband, Jeremy Kendall, or similar.

Unfortunately, she became so engrossed in her task in the office, Parker didn’t respond very fast or even at all when Eliot first called for her. She just thought he was being impatient as ever and trying to hurry her along for the sake of it. The truth was, there were staff headed this way!

“Parker!” he snapped as he stuck his head around the door and found her still rummaging through files. “Will you get out of there, people are coming!” he told her angrily as he walked in and pushed the door half closed behind him.

“Why didn’t you say so?” she checked, hearing the same voices he did in the corridor beyond.

Two pairs of wide eyes met as Eliot and Parker both realised that out the door was no longer an option and in such a small office there really was nowhere to hide.

A moment later, as Laurie Redfern and psychologist, Dr Laura Matthius, walked into the strangely unlocked staff only office, they found Alice White on top of her husband, Paul MacDonald, all across one of the desks, making out like it was going out of style.

“Well, goodness me!” Laurie declared, a hand to her chest, as the couple parted, both looking flustered.

“Oh, we’re sorry,” said Parker with a grin, as she fanned herself with one hand. “Sometimes I just can’t help myself,” she said, slapping Eliot on the backside just as soon as he was upright - he wasn’t impressed, but had to hide it in order to keep their cover.

“Sorry, ladies,” he apologised to the owner and the psychologist. “We were just... caught up in the moment, I guess.” He faked a laugh. “Must’ve stumbled through the wrong door and... well, we’ll get out of your hair now,” he said quickly, bundling Parker out of the door, his arm around her shoulders still. “What the hell was that?” he asked her in an angry whisper, just as soon as he closed the office door behind them.

“I covered for us.” She shrugged, seemingly unmoved, though the fact of the matter was she had been kind of surprised by how good it had felt to kiss Eliot that way.

“You did well, Parker,” said Nate in their ears. “Although if I were the staff I might be wondering why you were at a couples retreat if you, er... get along so well,” he said, with a smirk you could just hear.

“It was very convincing.” Sophie smiled, unable to keep straight-face after what she’d just seen.

“It was unnecessary,” Hardison complained, at which Parker sighed.

“I don’t know what your problem is,” she told him, “the thing got stuck in where it needed to go.” She shrugged, as at least two gasps of shock came through the earbuds.

“She means the flash drive, Hardison!” snapped Eliot, giving Parker a glare that she couldn’t figure out - what had she done wrong now?

Of course most of Eliot’s problem as they walked back to the dining room was not what she’d said so much as what Parker had done. Jumping on him in that office, it was pretty much the last thing he had expected her to do. Worse than that, when she kissed him and he started kissing back, he almost lost himself in the moment. It felt good, much better than it should’ve when he reminded himself this was Parker he’d been making out with. Oh, he really, really had to talk to her about wearing clothes in bed tonight or things were only going to get worse... and more painful from where he was at!

Meanwhile, at the Leverage offices, Hardison was doing what he did best and soon had the contents of The Twin Souls Retreat server showing on his own laptop screen. Sophie and Nate peered over either one of the hacker’s shoulders, as names and faces flashed up before their eyes. Some kind of search began running, and Hardison explained it should find Bethan and Roger’s real names and details within a matter of minutes. Truth be told, the undercover couple were not really listening.

“Next time we need a diversion, I’m in charge of it,” Eliot was saying, as Nate glanced up at the vid screen and tracked them walking from one corridor into the next and back through the dining room doors.

“Hey, maybe you both should just...” began Hardison, only to have Sophie poke him in the shoulder.

“It’s stopped.” She gestured at the computer screen, getting him to pay attention to the fact his search had been competed.

“Oh, here we go.” He smiled, getting Nate’s attention too by now. “We got Elizabeth Bunch and... Brewster Jones,” he read aloud, making a face. “Seriously? Brewster? Seriously?” he checked, craning his neck to look up at the mastermind by his shoulder.

“Not really what we need to be focusing on now, Hardison,” he pointed out, tapping a finger on the screen. “Nevermind the names, let’s find out who these people really are,” he encouraged, whilst Sophie kept an eye on Eliot and Parker as they returned to their table.

She listened to ‘Alice’ make excuses and say she was feeling much better now, as Bethan (aka Elizabeth) fussed over her. ‘Paul’ immediately tried to change the subject as the two couples made random conversation, whilst all the time Parker and Eliot continued to listen to the conversation going on back at the office.

“Okay,” said Nate as he read over Hardison’s shoulder still. “So it would seem these two are actors.”

“Not good ones,” the hacker scoffed. “They’ve been in less decent shows than-” He stopped short of actually saying Sophie’s name as he glanced her way and saw the look on her face. “Yeah,” he cleared his throat, letting it go before he got into some serious trouble.

“They’re getting paid to make the retreat look good,” said the grifter with some understanding, but a frown soon settled on her features, “but why would they be trying to help and encourage the couples to stay together, if they want the marriages to fail. It doesn’t make any sense.” She shook her head.

“Unless our happy couple turn sour in a couple of days and start pouring poison in some ears,” considered Nate causing Parker to frown at the very literal imagery that ran through her head.

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay now, Alice?” asked Roger (or Thomas, or Brewster!) from across the table, though not thinking about her alias right now meant the blonde didn’t answer.

“Hey, Alice,” her ‘husband’ prompted, poking her in the side from under the table. “You feelin’ alright, honey?” he overdid the niceties through gritted teeth, and even Parker couldn’t fail to notice it.

“Sure, yeah, I’m fine... baby,” she threw on the term of endearment at the last moment, which only made it sound even more odd, as she forced a grin and picked at the vegetarian meal on her plate.

“Well, at least this afternoon's class should be easier on you,” said Bethan kindly. “I’m sure all that spinning around in dance class didn’t help if you’re feeling queasy.”

“Oh yeah.” Parker nodded her agreement, though she didn’t mean it at all. “Psycho-analysis torture - yay!” she joked, at least the other couple assumed she was joking, and laughed appropriately.

Eliot wasn’t exactly paying enough attention to care as he made a move to accidentally-on-purpose knock his knife onto the floor. Branding himself a butterfingers, he slid down off his chair and stayed crouched under the edge of the table a moment as he spoke through his earbud in a hushed voice.

“What about the flashdrive, Hardison?” he checked.

“It’s cool, man,” the hacker assured him. “If and when they find it, it’ll be blank as if it was brand new. They won’t ever know what hit ‘em,” he promised, as Eliot got back into his seat,

“As for Bethan and Roger, as they’re calling themselves,” said Nate thoughtfully. “I think you guys better keep an eye on them for now, until we know more.”

Just when Eliot and Parker thought things couldn’t get any worse, now they had to spend time not just with each other in this dumb place, but also with the most over-the-top annoyingly-cheerful couple in the retreat.

Yeah, this job was going great so far.


	7. Chapter 7

“Okay, we should really go,” said Parker pointedly through a fake laugh at the joke Roger Matthews had just made.

It seemed he and wife Bethan wanted to be joined at the hip with ‘Alice and Paul’, and though the fake couple had got as far as the door to their room, they hadn’t yet managed to get inside yet. Eliot was seething underneath the forced grin on his lips, the arm he had slung around Parker’s shoulders twitching in such a way, she was sure he just really wanted to hit something, or somebody. She could relate because honestly, if she thought smacking both Bethan and Roger in the head would get rid of them for not just today but the rest of the week they were trapped here, then she would do it too!

“Hopefully we’ll get to talk some more later.” The brunette grinned as she backed up down the corridor, her husband gripping her hand and waving with his free one as they went.

“Oh my God,” Parker declared in a strained voice through her grin that she dare not let go of til the other couple were out of sight. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“Tell me about it,” said Eliot, grateful not to have to smile anymore as they both turned and went into their room.

“You two did great,” Sophie told them through their earbuds. “Very convincing actually.”

“My face hurts,” Parker complained as she slumped down into the chair in the corner. “Too much smiling in this job,” she muttered as her hands went to her cheeks, massaging muscles that seemed to ache already.

“Yeah, well, you won’t need to smile much this afternoon,” said Nate in her ear as well as Eliot’s own. “If you’re going to be convincing as a couple that needs this retreat, you’re going to have to act like it in front of this doctor person”

“You got anymore info on her yet?” asked the hitter as he sat down on the end of the bed.

“Nah, Dr Matthius is provin’ to be all kinds of tricky,” declared Hardison. “I been through these staff records, front to back and back to front. Seems like they employed her knowing she weren’t qualified as any kind of real psychologist.”

“So, we could out her?” suggested Eliot. “If nothin’ else comes up, we can bust ‘em for advertising experts they don’t have.”

“That is true,” nodded Nate, pointlessly since the person he was mostly talking to obviously couldn’t see him, “but it’s not enough. Let’s not forget what we’re here for, guys. This place wrecks marriages, on purpose. They drove a man to suicide.”

That got everybody’s attention as it was supposed to, reminding the whole team of their objective and how much this really did matter. Sure, it was bugging Eliot to be stuck in this place with Parker and nobody he was allowed to hit, but there was a reason. They had a job to do and that mattered. He shared a serious look with his team-mate across the room as they both seemed to silently agree to try harder on this job and complain less.

“It’s probably best if we offline before we meet the psychologist,” suggested Eliot, prompting a squeak of panic from Parker. “We can handle it, keep it simple. I just... I can’t have y’all in my head and a head-doctor too,” he said, his frustration evident.

“If that’s what you want,” said Sophie, “but Parker, will you be okay, honey?”

The blonde looked ready to argue but as she glanced at Eliot she seemed to change her mind completely.

“Yeah,” she told Sophie with a nod the grifter couldn’t see. “We’ll be fine,” she assured her friend, because honestly, she just trusted Eliot to get her out of a jam if one occurred.

Besides, they had a story all planned out, using events from their own relationship to mirror the fake one. Paul and Alice met on the same day as the first job the team pulled together, and in the same place too, just five years earlier. Though the circumstances of that meeting had been altered, Parker had learnt her lines well, and had hardly needed any prompting from Sophie when she was relaying it all to Bethan and Roger at lunch. So long as she didn’t panic, she knew she’d be fine.

Eliot was confident he knew what he was doing. Long-term grifting wasn’t really his strength, but he could do it. Besides, this afternoon pretty much consisted of him and Parker getting mad at each other, which they did pretty well on a regular basis anyway. Since the day they met, he knew she was crazy, and though they at least had some trust in each other to get the job done these days, they did have a tendency to rub each other up the wrong way.

It was only as Eliot sat on the window sill now, looking across at his partner-in-crime sprawled out on the bed, munching on the last of her fortune cookies, that he recalled the conversation the two of them needed to have. With the others offline, he was safe to say whatever he needed to without Hardison pitching a fit or even Sophie and Nate making unhelpful comments in his ear.

“Hey, Parker,” he called to her, causing her to sit up sharply, crossing her legs lotus style.

“What?” she asked as she swallowed her mouthful. “I’m not getting crumbs anywhere!” she protested, without him actually ever having accused her of anything.

“Did I say you were?” he said crossly as he pushed off the ledge of the window and thought about walking over to her, changing his mind last minute and shoving his hands in his pockets as he shifted a little awkwardly. “Uh, tonight you’re wearing clothes when we sleep,” he told her firmly, only to have her laugh at him.

“No way.” She shook her head. “I can’t sleep that way,” she informed him as she rolled herself off the bed and onto her feet, moving to toss the packet from her food into the trash.

“Fine, have it your way,” said Eliot with a gesture that said he didn’t care. “You can sleep on the couch tonight,” he said smartly, gesturing to the little two seater affair to one side of the bedroom that was never going to be comfortable, unless you were about three feet high.

“Why?” asked Parker, looking genuinely confused.

Eliot’s eyes were even wider than hers as he failed to comprehend how she could be so baffled. Most normal people would understand that men and women did not get naked in bed together unless they were a couple - it just was not done. Of course, most normal people didn’t take off their shirt as they dove into an elevator with two guys they only just met, but Parker had.

“There’s something wrong with you,” he told her with a shake of his head as he had so many times before, but the blonde remained unphased.

“I don’t see what the big deal is.” She shrugged. “Geez, it’s not like we’re going to have sex or anything!” she chuckled, in such a way that Eliot almost felt offended.

It was as if the idea of sleeping with him was so ridiculous that she felt the need to laugh about it, and that did nothing for a guys ego. Not that he wanted to have sex with Parker, that was insane. He was the one telling her she needed to wear clothes when they slept in the same bed, but then, he considered, he was really only doing that so he wouldn’t make some kind of stupid mistake...

“Let’s go to this damn meeting,” he said then, tossing his earbud on the nightstand and slamming out of the door.

Parker rolled her eyes at his dumb behaviour and then did the same, still wondering what Eliot’s deal was, and coming up empty.

* * *

“Okay, so... Alice and Paul MacDonald,” said the lady psychologist as she sat down in her chair and looked across at the couple on the couch.

“Alice White,” said Parker on reflex. “Not MacDonald.”

“I see.” The doctor nodded thoughtfully. “And why is that, Alice?” she asked with apparent curiosity. “Why is it that you felt the need to keep your own last name and not take on Paul’s when you were married?”

“Because... I’m a feminist,” the blonde replied, looking side-ways at her ‘husband’, not entirely sure she had said the right thing.

Eliot knew she wasn’t at all comfortable from the way she was sat bolt upright, her hands on her knees, knuckles going white from the intensity of her grip. Not that he was exactly happy to be here himself, but it was a necessary evil for the job and he certainly wasn’t going to panic in front of a psychologist.

“Dr Matthius, I...” he began, only to have her interrupt with a smile.

“Please, you should both call me Laura,” she said kindly. “We’re all friends here.”

“Right, Laura,” Eliot started over. “Y’know, I have no problem with Alice here wanting to keep her own name, that’s cool with me,” he said with an over the top smile that he was sure she would find annoying.

After all, weren’t these doctors and staff supposed to be breaking up couples, encouraging them into expensive divorces, and all that. If Eliot and Parker played the part of a couple in love then these people would have to pull out all the stops to bust them apart, giving them a chance to expose all the tricks of their trade. At least, that was his plan to start off with.

“You’re happy with it?” Laura checked, tapping her pencil against her chin. “I mean, it’s not a problem to you that your wife doesn’t want the world to know she’s married to you?”

“No, I just...” Eliot tried to answer, but realised if this were real, it really would bother him. “Well, yeah, I guess it bothers me a little. Course, it’d be worse if we had kids...”

Parker scoffed at that, a ridiculously loud chuckle escaping her lips that made both Eliot and Laura look at her as if she were crazy. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t made a sound.

“Alice, why that reaction to the subject of children?” she asked her with interest, as Parker’s eyes flitted madly from the doctor to Eliot and back.

“Um... well,” she said at length. “It’s just the idea of me and him having kids is like... woah! Crazy!” she told the psychologist, her fingers making spinning patterns by her head to demonstrate just how insane the thought of it really was.

Eliot wasn’t sure how to take that. They were acting, obviously, but it was stinging a little bit to hear her laugh again at his expense. First the idea of sleeping with him seemed to amuse her, and now the idea of him being a father was apparently ludicrous. He knew that he was even more crazy than she was for letting it bother him, but he just couldn’t help it.

“Paul, do you see children in your future?” asked the doctor as Eliot was snapped back to reality.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, his answer honest on so many levels. “I mean, I always thought it’d happen, y’know, settle down, wife and kids, but then there’s work and... things just didn’t go exactly how I planned, I guess.”

“Okay,” Laura nodded. “How about you, Alice?” she asked next. “How did you perceive the future before Paul came along?”

“I don’t think about the future much... or the past, if I can help it,” she admitted with a shudder that made Eliot look at her strangely.

He knew she had a bad childhood, from things she’d said and things he’d heard. She was a foster-kid, probably changed home and family more often than he changed his socks from what he knew. That was rough for anybody, and it explained why a lot of the time Parker seemed so out of whack to everybody else around her. When Eliot remembered the crap she must’ve been through, he always felt a little bad for calling her abnormal or similar so often, which was why he tried not to think about it, unless he was forced to.

“Well, there is something to be said for living in the present, concentrating on the task at hand,” said the doctor thoughtfully as she made some notes on the clipboard resting on her knee. “So, let’s start to talk about why you’re here...” she said, exchanging one piece of paper for another. “Alice, let’s start with you. Where do you think the problems in your relationship stem from?”

Parker looked thoughtful a moment, glancing towards Eliot and catching him glaring at her again. Her eyes reverted back to the front and she gave her answer.

“He’s mean,” she said succinctly, catching Dr Matthius unawares.

“Um, Paul is... mean?” she echoed. “In what way?” she asked her.

“He just gets all crotchety and weird about stuff,” Parker explained with a shrug on her slim shoulders. “I mean, I was eating on the bed, and he had a complete fit because I might actually get a crumb in there.”

“It’s not hygienic!” her ‘husband’ told her with a little too much volume.

“Oh, yeah?” responded Parker, like a kid in a playground argument, before turning her attention back to Laura. “And he has this huge problem with me sleeping naked!” she exclaimed, as Eliot’s eyes went wide.

He could hardly believe she was bringing this up now, in front of the psychologist. Inside, he was starting to panic some because he knew what came next and for the life of him Eliot wished right now he’d never taken out his earbud or told the guys they could do this alone.

“Paul, do you have a problem with Alice sleeping in the nude?” asked Laura gently, and yet the question still hurt his ears and left him opening and closing his mouth like a landed fish, unable to give a proper verbal answer yet.

Parker was enjoying the show altogether too much, leaning into the corner of the couch with her arms folded across her chest, all triumphant. If she was a guy, Eliot could happily swing for her right now, but then if she were a guy this would be a much simpler conversation to get out of!

“It’s okay, Paul,” said Laura, reaching out a hand to cover his where it lay on his knee. “Like I said, we’re all friends here. You can say anything you want to,” she reminded him. “I would ask if you have issues with intimacy, but... well, you two certainly seemed okay with that side of things in the office earlier,” she said with a smile.

“Hey, that was all her!” said Eliot quickly, immediately realising that he was just adding fuel to the doctors fire of ‘intimacy issues’ and wishing he’d never spoken at all. “I just... Man, I don’t know why I’m even here,” he said, getting up from the couch and turning his back on both women before he said or did something else he might regret.

“I think you’re right,” said Parker somewhere behind him, whispering to Laura but still easy to hear in the small quiet room. “Intimacy issues.”

“I do not have intimacy issues!” he practically exploded as he turned back around fast, making the doctor jump some and ‘his wife’ to just giggle at how mad she’d managed to make him.

“Okay, that’s... okay.” Laura nodded, forcing a smile as she scribbled further notes on the paper.

“See what you did now?” said Parker smartly as she looked up at Eliot. “You scared the doctor. She probably thinks you’re some kind of violent maniac now.”

“No, no, no,” Dr Matthius quickly intervened. “No, nobody thinks that,” she said as she encouraged Paul to retake his seat.

Letting out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding she reviewed her notes and made another attempt at finding a way to break through the problems this couple clearly had. It seemed there was a lot of passion bubbling beneath the surface, which should be a good thing but seemed to be working against the couple as it came out in arguments and anger.

“Okay, let’s try this,” she suggested. “Alice, I want you to look Paul in the eye and tell him the one thing you love most about him.”

Parker panicked a little then as she was forced to face her fake husband and meet his intense gaze. She didn’t know anything about love, she certainly didn’t know what she was supposed to say she loved about Eliot. Sure, she liked him well enough, they worked on the team well together and they got along okay. He had her back and she had his at times, which was nice, but none of that was couple stuff, was it?

“He... he’s my safety net,” she said too quietly, glancing at Laura who smiled encouragingly.

“Don’t tell me, Alice,” she advised. “Tell Paul,” she gestured for her to look back at Eliot and explain herself.

“Okay.” Parker nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah, so... you’re my safety net. It’s like, if anything bad happens, I know you’re there, and I’m not going to fall because... you’re going to catch me,” she told him, trying to maintain eye contact but finding it strange.

Eliot didn’t smile much, not for anybody, except for that almost sadistic grin he got when he beat the bad guy into the ground. The look she was getting from him now was so genuine, such a real bright smile from his lips to his eyes, that the glow of it might’ve blinded her.

Laura was smiling too, though nobody noticed as she leaned into Eliot a little more and spoke softly to him.

“Your turn, Paul,” she advised. “Tell Alice what you love most about her.”

It took Eliot a minute to think, not because there was no answer to give but because there were a hundred, but none suitable for here and now. Love was a big word but there was plenty to like about Parker, even if she was kinda crazy. He did like the jokes she cracked without even meaning to, and the way she threw herself into things without worrying about the consequences. He had to admit, he didn’t so much mind looking at her, whatever she was wearing... and when she wasn’t wearing anything at all!

“Er, yeah,” he said eventually. “I can’t pick one thing,” he admitted, not sure why he was saying this but telling himself it was just to get this whole meeting over with as fast as possible. “There’s too many things about her, it’s impossible to choose.”

Parker smiled then, a real genuine smile, as a pinkness rose in her cheeks that Eliot wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before.

As Dr Laura Matthius looked between the two of them then, she grinned too, unable to help herself. Glancing down at her paperwork, she scribbled a note at the bottom of the page:

‘Unquestionably in love.’


	8. Chapter 8

“Sophie, could you please stop wandering up and down like that?” asked Nate as he looked up and found her still pacing in front of the vid-screen. “You’re making me dizzy.”

“I’m sorry,” she sighed as she stopped, taking a seat at the table. “I just think maybe we shouldn’t have agreed to let Eliot and Parker go solo this afternoon,” she considered. “I mean you know how she panics when she’s on the grift...”

“That only happens when she’s alone,” the mastermind reminded her. “Anytime she has someone to lean on, she does okay.”

“That is true,” Hardison agreed with a nod. “She has one of us close by, the girl got mad skillz, and Eliot is right there for her,” he told his friend and colleague, as he continued tapping away at his laptop keys.

There was still work to be done on the staff files he’d managed to download from the Twin Souls computer systems. First of all, Hardison had checked for any more couples that might be employed to make the place look good or whatever it was this fake Bethan and Roger were up to. That had been a bust and so the next job was digging round for any real kind of qualifications on the so-called doctors at the place, or maybe some other dirt they might use against Twin Souls.

“I think tomorrow we need to start looking at our undercover couple doing a little more nosing around,” said Nate thoughtfully. “According to this schedule they were given, they have a little free time today between their ‘therapy’ with Dr Matthius and dinner, but tomorrow morning looks like a better bet...” he said, sliding the paperwork across the table to Sophie.

She read what he gave her and then nodded that she agreed with his assessment of the situation, but was far for smiling yet.

"Sounds great... but it doesn't help my nerves right now, Nate," she told him, looking up at the vid screen one more time.

There were no cameras in the therapy rooms, presumably deliberately since a) such things were supposed to be extremely private and b) there would be no need for security in internal rooms that held nothing of value. This meant that the rest of the team had to wait impatiently until Eliot and Parker excited the room into the adjacent hallway to even know where they were.

“The doctor is a woman,” Nate reminded Sophie. “That counts out Parker feeling the need to attack, since it’s usually only men that bring that out in her,” he pointed out. “Plus Eliot is hardly likely to lash out at a woman, which is a good thing since he’s going to have to talk about his feelings. We all know how much us men just love that,” he added with sarcasm evident.

“Amen to that, bro.” Hardison shuddered, even as he continued to hammer away at the keys on his computer keyboard.

“How are we doing with the digging on qualifications?” asked Sophie then, coming to peer over the hacker’s shoulder for something else to do other than pace and annoy Nate.

“So far? Nothing and less than nothing,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “Could be they’ve both had name changes but I doubt it, that’s what I’m lookin’ for right now,” he explained, “but that ain’t easy with you all... there,” he said with a wave of his hand at her face which was stuck right over his shoulder in the most distracting way.

Straight away, Sophie sighed and returned to her most annoying pacing, and Nate got up from the table himself then, to go and get a drink. He was going to need one if today was going to continue in this vein!

* * *

“Okay, so let’s take these positive things we’ve found and focus on them for a moment,” said Dr Laura Matthius as she encouraged Eliot and Parker to continue facing each other. “Alice, you said Paul is your safety net. Does it worry you that he might not be there to catch you one day?” she asked her.

“No,” came Parker’s immediate answer, surprising herself as much as Eliot apparently, though an encouraging nod from Laura made her keep talking. “I mean... I just trust that he’s going to be there. Like Miami,” she said with a smile as her eyes met her ‘husband’s own.

The fact he returned the look gave Laura even more hope for the pair’s future, and she honestly wondered how they’d ever ended up in a retreat for troubled couples when they seemed to be so in love. Of course, this place was away from the daily trials and tribulations of real life that so often caused arguments and problems in relationships. She would have asked the significance of Miami in all this but did not feel the need, as ‘Paul’ spoke up next.

“She needs me, I’m there.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal, glancing at the doctor then. “It’s what I do.”

“That’s excellent.” Laura smiled just the same as she made further notes on her paperwork. “And what is it that Alice does for you, Paul?” she asked curiously.

Parker seemed as interested as the doctor to know what Eliot might say in response to such a question, and honestly he was wondering himself until suddenly the words came tumbling out of his mouth.

“She drives me crazy.” He chuckled. “But y’know that’s cool, ‘cause it means life is never boring with her around.”

It would have been so easy, they both realised, to forget why they were here right now. Both Eliot and Parker had committed to their characters, or so they told themselves, and that was the only reason they were sat here now smiling like idiots as they threw compliments and niceties at each other. There was no other reason for them to act this way. It wasn’t as if they actually liked each other beyond some kind of friend/work colleague vibe they had going on. Denial was not just a river in Egypt apparently.

“Okay,” said the doctor at length as she completed another section of notes on her paper. “Well, I think we’ve made some excellent progress here today,” she smiled widely as she got to her feet and encouraged the couple to do the same.

“That’s it, we’re done?” asked Parker, looking hopeful as she glanced towards the door through which she might escape.

“Yes, Alice, we’re done, for now,” Laura assured he with a light laugh. “You both did excellently, and now you have some free time to spend as you wish until dinner,” she explained, reaching out to shake hands with Parker and then Eliot.

“Thanks, doc,” he said politely before following his ‘wife’ out of the door.

It had been such a surreal experience for a while there, having to come up with things he liked about Parker, having to pretend to be in love with her enough to fool a semi-qualified therapist. He always thought Sophie was the greatest grifter, and yet right now Eliot wasn’t so sure that Parker or even himself hadn’t come close to the greatest lie of all time sat in that room together.

“So, what now?” the blonde thief asked him as they cleared the doors, making a point of waving into the nearest security cameras through which she was sure the rest of the team would be watching them.

“Cut it out,” Eliot advised, pulling her arms down by her side. “You want people to notice us? We’re supposed to be blending,” he reminded her.

“See, mean and crotchety!” she repeated the words she had used to describe him in front of Dr Matthius eatlier, and immediately proceeded in winding Eliot up again, making him wonder how he had ever maintained a loved-up persona with her just moments before.

“Whatever!” he declared. “I’m hittin’ the gym,” he said, storming off before she could say another word.

“Fine!” Parker yelled behind him, before turning to go the other way... and finding a wall in her way.

Quickly changing direction, she walked along, not following signs or having a clue where she was going until she opened the next door that led outside and realised she was right by the pool. In the absence of diving off buildings (her favourite pass-time, especially when she wasn’t feeling particularly happy) she could settle for jumping from the highest diving board and taking a swim.

Her mind made up, Parker hurried back through the corridors to her room, to grab her bathing suit and towel. She briefly considered putting her earbud back in and checking in with the team, but soon thought better of it. Eliot hadn’t taken his to the gym ether, it seemed, and besides she was pretty sure she shouldn’t get it wet in the pool.

Heading back the way she came, it wasn’t long before Parker was striding out of the door in a black one-piece, tying her hair up in a ponytail as she surveyed the pool area. There weren’t many people around, three couples actually swimming and another four or five people in loungers at the side. Nobody seemed willing to take a dive, but then Parker was always a little different to everybody else. She was at the base of the ladder in no time, taking the rungs two at a time just to get to the top faster. The higher she got, the wider Parker’s smile grew, passing by a lower board on her way up. Suddenly, she was there, not a fraction of the height she was used to leaping from, but still high enough that the air felt fresher and the world felt that much more right.

When she stood on the top of the world, there was a freedom that Parker knew nowhere else. Looking down at tiny people in the distance never gave her cause to worry she might fall, because falling was half the fun. She trusted herself, her skills, her instincts to save her from getting hurt.

Parker stopped short of jumping off the board the first time, perhaps because of the thoughts that filled her head, thoughts of an hour before sat in a psychologists room, telling both her and Elliot that he was her safety net, he caught her when she fell. Of course, he caught her from the bad falls, the ones that might end in disaster otherwise. This kind of falling, this was familiar and good, this she wanted.

With no further thinking, Parker backed up on the board, and executed a perfect flip before she made her dive off the end. She tumbled end over end like a true professional, before eventually landing with a large but perfect splash into the water.

It was an exhilarating rush as she went down and then came up, breaking the surface into the fresh air again. This was what she loved, falling, spinning, floating, applauding... Okay, that last one didn’t sit right in Parker’s head and her wide smile soon faded to a frown as she moved around in the pool, treading water as she tried to figure out where the clapping was coming from. She half wondered if Eliot had come to find her and seen her dive, then found she was oddly disappointed when she ran a hand over her face to clear her vision of water and spotted Roger or Thomas or Brewster or whatever his name was.

“Oh, great,” she said to herself as he beckoned her over and she swam the short distance to the side of the pool where he was sat grinning at her. “Hey, Roger,” she greeted him.

“Alice, that was amazing,” he enthused as she pulled herself up to sit on the side beside him, though very deliberately with a couple of clear feet between them - after all, he was kinda hairy and fat. “I guess dancing isn’t your only talent.”

“We all have our own skills.” She shrugged, wondering how long she had to be friendly and stay here before she could get away, without seeming really rude.

“Does Paul not have the same swimming skills as you?” asked Roger conversationally. “I only ask because, well, I couldn’t ever convince Bethan to get in a pool. She prefers a workout without the water so she hit the gym.”

Parker wasn’t sure if it was just coincidence that Roger was here and his wife was where Eliot had gone, but somehow she doubted it. A suspicious mind was a useful thing in a con, but it could also be wrong.

“That’s where he is,” she said, trying not to frown or show any emotion that would give her away. “Paul, I mean, at the gym,” she clarified. “I think he was a little stressed out after our therapy session.” She rolled her eyes.

Immediately she took her eyes of Roger, she wished she hadn’t. She felt him move closer and resisted the urge to react, at least at first. When he spoke too close to her, she shuddered at the feel of his breath in her ear.

“Y’know, if you ever need someone else to talk to, when hubby hasn’t got time to spare for you, I’m here,” he told her. “I know what it’s like, to feel abandoned...” he continued, his hand suddenly very much on Parker’s bare thigh.

Like lightening, she reacted, using all her might and pushing Roger into the pool with an almighty splash. On her feet in a second, she bolted back into the building and headed straight for her room, still dressed in just her bathing suit and without showering or even stopping to pick up her towel or anything.

The door to hers and Eliot’s room slammed behind her, as she leaned against it breathing hard. Parker honestly wasn’t sure what just happened here, but she wasn’t happy about it, and she was pretty sure she hadn’t helped to make it better.


	9. Chapter 9

Eliot felt better after his work-out, just like he always did. Beating on guys was the best therapy for him, but burning away the anger between the treadmill and the rowing machine worked too, at least it had until Bethan Matthews started hanging around him like some kind of groupie. Thankfully a lot of her incessant rambling was blocked out by the music he was blasting into his ears until he was done.

All raged out, showered, and relaxed, Eliot headed back to the room he was sharing with Parker, even thinking maybe he ought to apologise to her or something. After all, he’d been a little harsh after their therapy session with Dr Matthius and none of what had happened had been entirely the little thief’s fault.

When he opened the door he expected to find her sulking, or maybe just not there at all. Parker was more likely to be hiding in the air-vents if she was upset or something, or so Eliot thought, until he stepped into the room and found his partner in crime sat on the edge of he bed, her knees pulled up to her chest, shaking like a leaf.

“Parker?” he said, dropping his bag on the ground and closing the door simultaneously. “What happened?” he asked, with genuine concern.

It was clear something was wrong, not least because she was dressed in just a bathing suit and clearly freezing because of it. Her hair was down though still trying to hold the shape of a previous ponytail, and she reeked of chlorine. She had to have run here straight from the pool without even showering, but for the life of him, Eliot couldn’t figure as to why.

“Parker!” he yelled this time, because honestly she was starting to scare him, just staring at the opposite wall and holding herself tight like she might die if she let go.

“I’m sorry,” she immediately apologised through chattering teeth from the cold.

It wasn’t exactly the height of Summer anyway, though this was California and the weather didn’t so much tend towards bad. It was chilly enough and when a person was half-naked and soaking wet, that wasn’t going to help matters.

Pushing his hair out of his face, that was still frizzy from the shower he’d taken, Eliot looked around and then grabbed the comforter from the bottom of the bed, pulling it carefully around Parker’s shoulders. He hovered by the bed a moment, thinking on whether it was better to sit next to her or stay standing, whether he should put in his earbud and talk to the team or just figure it out with Parker first.

“He shouldn’t’ve touched me like that,” she said all of a sudden, startling Eliot from his thoughts and stirring up an anger in the pit of the hitter’s stomach that was unexpected to say the least.

“Who touched you?” he ground out. “Parker, what happened?” he tried again when she didn’t answer, trying not to be mad at her because he doubted somehow that this was her fault.

“Roger,” she said swallowing hard as her eyes regained their focus and she looked at Eliot who was now crouched in front of her. “We were at the pool and... I’m sorry,” she repeated, tears apparently filling her eyes, something Eliot had never seen before.

There were times he wondered if she really knew how to cry or be emotional at all. Parker was so black and white with things, and her moods varied between angry, neutral, and happy. Sad was new, tears were new, and something he could have used never having to deal with. Women crying was one thing he just couldn’t stand.

“Don’t be sorry, darlin’,” he advised, trying not to sound angry, even though he was already planning seven different ways to tear this Roger guy apart for what he’d done. “Just tell me what happened,” he urged her, his hand moving as if to touch her until Eliot thought better of it and retracted his fingers, not knowing that his making contact with her would be just fine to Parker.

“We were at the pool,” she started over. “He just... I keep thinking maybe he was trying to be nice but, but then his hand was there and... I pushed him in,” she admitted, giggling almost madly now as she recalled that part of the afternoon’s events. “He probably almost drowned... or just sank. He’s kinda fat,” she noted.

Eliot was at least a little relieved that she was both talking and smiling now, a vast improvement on her stony silence and staring at walls from just a few moments ago. Of course the fact this Roger guy had laid a hand on her in such a way as to freak her out like this didn’t thrill him at all. Eliot was a protector, it was what he did, especially when it came to this team. He ought to have been there with Parker, then this guy wouldn’t even have to dared to look at her in a wrong way, Eliot would’ve seen to that.

“I guess I over-reacted, maybe,” she said, shivering still and pulling the comforter tighter around her shoulders.

“Maybe,” Eliot said absently, though honestly he doubted it because he knew a good number of women that would push a guy in a pool for putting the moves on them.

After all, Parker was supposed to be the very married Alice, and Roger supposedly had a marriage worth saving too, else why be at a couples retreat? This whole episode only added fuel to the fire that Roger and Bethan were plants and maybe not even a couple at all. It meant they had news for the team but Eliot just couldn’t concentrate on that now, not when Parker was such a mess.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked her, not really sure what he was meant to do right now.

If she were any other woman he might’ve been able to deal, but Parker was so different, and so fragile in a lot of ways. He’d rather have her tell him what she needed than risk guessing and screwing up, making matters worse.

“Yeah.” She nodded eventually, a slight smile giving away to a confused frown as her hand was suddenly outstretched to Eliot’s hair. “You must use straighteners,” she noted from the frizzy curls that had appeared when he showered,

“You keep that to yourself, okay?” he warned her, though he didn’t really look all that mad as he dared to bring his hand up to hold onto hers.

When she didn’t pull away or smack him in the face, he figured it was only strangers hands she was allergic to. Besides, he wouldn’t ever make a move with her, she was Parker after all, and that was an insane idea. Well, that was the story he was telling himself so far...

“Did I screw up the whole job?” she asked with a little worry in her eyes.

“Nah, it’ll be fine,” Eliot assured her, moving to sit beside her then. “You want me to go kill this Roger guy for you?” he asked semi-seriously, and Parker giggled as she let her head drop into his shoulder.

“That really would ruin the con,” she sighed. “But thanks for the offer,” she said, genuinely grateful apparently.

They sat like that a few moments, before Parker suddenly seemed to realise the state she was in and maybe that she was allowing herself to depend on someone. That could be dangerous, she decided, and was immediately on her feet, still with the comforter around her shoulders. Eliot thought she muttered something about needing to shower and then she was gone , leaving the door swinging behind her.

The hitter let out a long breath before reaching over to the nightstand and popping his earbud into his ear. Before he ever got a chance to ask if the team had seen anything that happened with either him and Bethan or Roger and Parker, they were bombarding him with questions.

“Guys... Guys... Guys!” he tried three times, getting louder every time til finally they paid attention and all shut their mouths. “I don’t know how much longer Parker can stay in here. What just happened really freaked her out,” he told them, looking towards the door she had just disappeared through. “I don’t think she blew our cover, I mean most women would push a guy into a pool if another chick’s husband tried to feel her up but-”

“Poor Parker,” Sophie sympathised. “That Roger is a dirty rat, and his wife’s no better! I saw the way she was flirting with you, Eliot. She may as well have taken all her clothes off and shouted, ‘Have at it, big boy!’”

That earnt the grifter three astonished looks from the guys, though of course she could only see two of them. The moment passed quickly enough, if only because there were much more serious things to consider than Sophie’s odd phrasing and shocking statement.

“Okay,” Nate was first to speak in the brief silence that had followed. “So, unfortunately another couple at the retreat simultaneously hitting on you two isn’t really enough evidence for us to do anything,” he told the team, all business as ever and making Eliot just a little mad when his own focus had been Parker’s welfare, something that surprised even him to be honest. “Since so far Hardison can’t find anything more incriminating than our would-be swingers being employees of the retreat, I think we’re going to have to come at this from another angle.”

“What angle is that?” asked Eliot, arms folded and foot tapping impatiently by now.

“Honestly? I’m not sure yet,” the mastermind told him, “but I should have a plan by tomorrow,” he considered.

“In the meantime, Eliot, you take care of Parker,” Sophie told him definitely, even as Hardison started to argue with Nate at what he considered to be an accusation of his not trying hard enough.

“I don’t know what to say to her, Soph,” the hitter admitted, ignoring the other two men as they bickered in the background. “She just... she freaked out so much, and then it was almost like it didn’t happen.”

“She’s skittish about men sometimes,” the grifter reminded him. “I never asked why, I’m assuming one too many foster fathers with happy fists... or worse.” She shuddered. “Whatever the reason, Eliot, just... just be what she needs, okay? Just let her know she’s doing well, and she’s not alone.”

“Of course,” the hitter replied with a single nod that went unseen by his team mate.

The connection was soon severed with an agreement that Eliot and Parker would check in with the team early tomorrow for further instructions and hopefully the workings of a new plan. His earbud abandoned once again, Eliot pushed his frizzy hair out of his face, deciding then and there he was going to fix that before his faux-wife returned to the room. By then it would be almost time for dinner, and after that bed, and that would mean a whole other awkward conversation that needed to be revisited.

“This job is not fun,” Eliot muttered to himself, rifling in the drawer for the hair-straigteners, still sore that the one guy so far that deserved being beat senseless was out of bounds.

* * *

Parker was too quiet and it was starting to bother Eliot. When they went to dinner, he made a point of keeping tabs on where Bethan and Roger sat. He very deliberately sat himself and Parker away from them, with her back to the couple. They didn’t try to come over, and that pleased the hitter for the most part, though on some level he’d love for the guy to make a fuss, give him a further excuse to knock him to the ground.

The little thief sat opposite him picked at her food with some deliberate sighs, that soon had Eliot feeling so bad for her, he traded her half his meal just to make her smile. He honestly wasn’t sure when he started caring so much for her welfare and happiness. He told himself it was just that she was easier to handle when she wasn’t moping and sad, knowing the truth but refusing to acknowledge it, especially not now.

The fake couple got back to their room all too soon, and then came the problem of sleeping arrangements. They delayed the inevitable for a while as Eliot worked his way through a few more chapters of a book, and Parker kept her skills sharp by going through her set of locks with the stop watch at the ready. When both of them couldn’t keep from yawning, they started stealing glances at each other, wondering how this was going to play out. Eventually, Parker decided to just do what she did best and ask the question on her mind outright.

“You’re not really serious about me sleeping on the couch, right?” she asked, shutting the drawer on her locks and picks, and coming to sit on the bed by Eliot’s feet.

He meant to say yes, tell her he was perfectly serious, but just as soon as he peered over the top of his book at her sad face and recalled what she’d been through today, he just couldn’t do it. Besides, it was hardly gentlemanly to make a woman sleep anywhere but in the available bed - his Momma would never approve

“No,” he said with a sigh, as he took off his glasses and deposited both them and his book on the night-stand. “You can take the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch,” he offered, moving to stand up and contemplating the piece of furniture across the room that was never going to offer a good nights sleep.

“You don’t have to,” shrugged Parker, not getting what the big deal was even now as she started stripping off her shirt and pants without a care. “I guess I could sleep in my underwear if it bothers you so much.” She rolled her eyes, as she glanced over her bare shoulder at Eliot and saw he was seriously contemplating her offer.

There was no decision to make as far as Parker was concerned and she wasn’t about to stand around and wait for the usually stoic hitter to actually speak. Instead, she climbed into bed and snuggled down under the covers, still in bra and panties, as promised.

Eliot didn’t move for a long moment. The couch really didn’t appeal at all and the bed was easily big enough for the both of them. Besides, it wasn’t like he had no self-control and Parker had proved she wasn’t exactly comfortable with guys getting physical with her. Of course, that didn’t account for them waking up cuddling this morning, but that was a mistake, and neither of them were here for sex, only for sleep.

Deciding he was being an idiot, Eliot glanced once more at Parker’s back and made his choice. Stripping off his clothes, right down to his boxers, he climbed into the bed beside her, turning onto his side. They started out back to back once again, both with the idea in their head that they could so easily wake up again next morning like they had today, and yet neither moved to get out of the bed at all. Now there was a curious thing, they both realised, before they fell asleep.


	10. Chapter 10

Parker couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t entirely unusual for her, because honestly she didn’t get tired much, and quite often deep sleep just brought on nightmares she’d sooner not deal with. Still, she hadn’t had any problems sleeping here at the retreat the night before, and maybe that was what her biggest problem was.

Sharing a bed was different for Parker. As a kid she’d had to do it a few times with various foster brothers and sisters, or other children at the home. However, as an adult she had always slept alone, and it never once occurred to her to do anything else. It wasn’t that getting naked bothered her, more that when she was asleep she had to believe that whoever else was there beside her could be trusted not to harm her. She trusted Eliot, he was on her team and always out to protect all of them. There was no way he would ever take advantage of her. Hell, he seemed almost afraid to touch her earlier when she almost wished he would.

It was these kind of thoughts that had Parker frowning hard and not sleeping at all. She wasn’t particularly surprised that Eliot never made a move on her, she didn’t expect guys to want to do that and the shock of meeting one who did never failed to send her spiralling out of control. That was how Roger had ended up nearly drowned in the pool earlier, and yet when Eliot was trying to talk to her about it, trying to be comforting, it was Parker that had leaned into him, actually liking the simple contact of his hand around hers, his shoulder beneath her head.

Next her mind wandered to the sleeping arrangements here, how skittish Eliot seemed to be about them sharing a bed. Parker figured it was one of those things that ‘normal’ people thought about but that just never bothered her. Clearly others associated sleeping with sex somehow. Sure, she knew both were done in beds, sometimes anyway, but she couldn’t think for a moment why Eliot would put her and sex in the same sentence when he was afraid to even try to be friendly with her most of the time, when he was always the first to say there was something wrong with her, or that she was crazy.

It was likely that Sophie would understand, and Parker kind of hoped she got the chance to talk to the grifter about all this weird stuff that was whirling around in her head at such an unreasonable hour. The clock told her it was well past midnight, and a yawn from her lips confirmed she was way past tired by now.

Perhaps the strangest of all Parker’s thoughts when it came to Eliot and their non-relationship was the last thing that occurred to her as she finally fell asleep. In all honesty, she kind of hoped that when she woke up in the morning she would be exactly where she had been today at first light, wrapped safely in the hitter’s arms. Ask her why, and Parker never would have been able to explain in, but she wished it just the same as she fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

“Sophie? Soph?” Nate jostled her elbow in a attempt to her get attention as the grifter continued to stare off into space a moment more, then snapped back to reality with a start. “I know I have a tendency to bore you on occasion but you were a million miles away there,” he said as he watched her re-connect with the room around her.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed, shaking a misty haze from behind her eyes. “I suppose I’m just tired, I mean, it is getting pretty late... Wow,” she said as she looked at her watch and realised how true her words had been as the hands both pointed just past the twelve.

“Geez, how’d that happen?” Nate commented as he realised she as right. “Maybe we should call it a night for now,” he agreed as they both got up from the table.

Hardison had headed home a while before, probably several hours now that the pair left behind thought on it. He needed sleep too, and to look at the information they had collated so far with a fresh pair of eyes in the morning. Nate and Sophie had stayed behind to figure out a new plan the best they could, though conversation had drifted several times to other things as they called for take out and shared a drink too. Sophie seemed to become more and more distracted as time wore on and though they had now both agreed to call it a night, Nate still wanted to know what was really on her mind and decided to ask her outright.

“I don’t know...” she sighed as he helped her on with her jacket. “I was just thinking about Parker, what she must have been through in her life, you know?” she said with a sad smile. “We’re the first proper family she’s had, I know that much, but things must’ve been so bad for her before. Nate, she can’t handle a man making a pass at her without losing it and... and I suppose I’m just worried about her.”

“Well, y’know, she has Eliot in there with her,” he said, hoping to be of some comfort as he went on. “And she seems perfectly fine with getting close with him.”

“Yeah, that’s curious too.” Sophie frowned then. “I mean, the girl freaks out when a man puts his hand on her thigh, and yet not long before she was practically straddling Eliot on a desk to an audience. It hardly adds up.”

Nate spent a moment considering that statement before he gave an answer to it.

“I guess it’s a matter of control.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Parker is fine when she’s in charge of what’s happening, but when that Roger guy came onto her she didn’t expect it and she didn’t want it, so it bothered her.”

“Maybe,” Sophie agreed with a nod. “I’m just glad most of the people she has to deal with at the retreat are women, for her sake and for the con,” she said as she opened the door to leave, bidding Nate a goodnight.

Left alone, the mastermind leant his back against the wall and got to thinking. His mind wasn’t so much on Parker but the last thing Sophie had said. There weren’t a lot of men at the retreat, not on the staff at least. One male therapist out of two, but most of the rest of the employees were females, a couple of porters not withstanding. Of course, there was one man very much involved in the running of the retreat, at least Nate assumed that Jeremy Kendall, the owner’s wife, must be helping with the business, figuring out the best ways to make new divorce clients out of the rosta of struggling couples.

“Maybe we’ve been coming at this from the wrong direction,” he said to himself as he headed back to the boardroom.

Sitting down at the table again, Nate poured himself a further drink of scotch as he rifled through papers spread out before him, seeking out an address they had yet to visit, and culminating that new plan he had told Eliot he should have by morning.

* * *

The light in his eyes reminded Eliot that he wasn’t at home, but still at the Twin Souls Retreat in the room where the flimsy drapes barely met in the middle of the window and did little to block the early morning sun from his eyes. His first reaction was to roll onto his back and away from the blinding light that was striking him as he lay now, in a similar position to how he’d gone to sleep the night before. The problem was there was something stopping him from turning over, and it took a moment more to realise that the something was actually more correctly a someone pressed up against his back.

Glancing down, Eliot found that either he had either grow a third arm in the night, or Parker had one of hers wrapped around him from behind. The light weight on his back certainly felt like a head between his shoulder blades and two slim legs were tucked up behind his own. It was a long time since the hitter had woken up to find himself spooning with another person, and even longer since he’d been the little spoon in the equation. Not that he really wanted to complain about the situation, because he had to admit there was nothing bad about the feel of a shapely female body pressed up against him this way. Of course remembering that said body belonged to Parker made him frown some. This was the same woman who had pretty much run screaming from a guy who dared to lay so much as a hand on her just yesterday, and now here she was snuggled up to him like they were some kind of lovers.

Eliot made a real effort to push these thoughts out of his head just as soon as they appeared. Yes, it was weird that they’d woken up snugly, twice in as many mornings, but he was not about to start getting sexual or romantic ideas about Parker. They were team-mates, they were perhaps friends in a strange way, but that was all... no matter how hot she was, or sweet she could be, or how turned on he was right now by the idea of finding out what else the body pressed up against him could do!

A quiet sigh in the silence, broke Eliot’s stream of consciousness as the contact along the length of his body suddenly peeled away. Whether Parker was turning over in her sleep or because she had woken up, the hitter couldn’t be sure, though he suspected the former over the latter. There was a very good chance they had landed up in this awkward position as a product of sleep, and that it would never happen if they were both awake and aware of what they were doing. Besides, if Parker had woken up to find herself all over him like that, Eliot was pretty sure she would have bolted from the room before he even had a chance to process what had occurred, such was her way when it came to these things.

Cautiously, Eliot rolled himself over and noted that Parker was now laid on her back beside him, her eyes still very much closed. It was a relief to realise she had only been wrapped around him that way because of an unconscious act, although beneath that relief there was just a hint of disappointment that confused the hitter to no end. It wasn’t as if he wanted Parker to like him that way, because that would make this beyond awkward, and yet the more time the two of them spent here together playing at being a couple, the more he was starting to wonder on things.

Laying on his back with one arm behind his head now, Eliot stared up at the ceiling, as if wishing that if he looked hard enough he might find some kind of answer to the questions inside his head written up there. There was no way he wanted a relationship with Parker, or with any women. He wasn’t that guy and hadn’t been in years, if it was ever him really.

“No!” a yell from the woman beside him had Eliot’s attention in a second. “No, no, no!” Parker yelled as she came to very suddenly, sitting bolt upright in the bed.

“Hey,” he said, shifting to sit up beside her. “It’s okay, Parker, you’re okay,” he assured her, his hand on her arm without even thinking.

Though her breathing was a little fast, when she turned to glance at him and their eyes met, she did at least seem to know where she was and believe that she actually was safe here. Nodding her head slowly to prove she understood, she then allowed herself to fall back against the pillows with a thud.

“Bad dream,” she said flatly. “Weird... and then bad,” she said, frowning suddenly and shooting a very confused look Eliot’s way.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, wondering what had her so baffled

He was starting to think maybe she was remembering something that involved the two of them being as close as they had been when he himself had woken up, before a nightmare replaced it and scared her awake.

“No,” she said swiftly as she moved and swung her legs out of bed. “Really don’t,” she said definitely as she got up and set about throwing on her clothes, even putting in her ear bud and seeing if the team were around.

“Good morning, er, Parker,” responded Nate sounding somewhat vague at first. “Is Eliot up too?” he checked.

“Eliot,” she said, looking back at him where he was now sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on his jeans. “Ear bud,” she instructed him with a finger pointed at her own ear to illustrate her point.

“I’m here,” he said, the moment the bud was in. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing yet,” Nate admitted, “but I have a new plan, just like I promised,” he told his undercover duo, as he paced the length of the Leverage boardroom, a drink in his hand as usual. “The, er, the bag that Hardison gave you, the one where you found the hard drive before...” he said, as Eliot went to the bedside locker and pulled said bag out.

“What do we need?” he checked, once again pouring out the contents onto the bed as Parker sat on the opposite edge to see what she could find of use.

“We’re looking for button cams and hidden mics, kids,” the Mastermind said into both thief and hitter’s ears. “The only way we’re going to get the evidence we need is to put a little pressure on the right people and see if they crack at all.”

“Who are the right people?” asked Parker, fingering the microphone she had just picked out of the pile of gadgets and working out where would be the best place to hide it on her person.

“Well, the only ones we have very little intel on are this Ritter guy, who should be talking to Eliot in a session this afternoon,” he explained. “And one person that you two can’t get at; Laurie Redfern’s husband, Jeremy Kendall,” he explained. “I’ll be talking to Sophie about him just as soon as she gets here.”

“What about Alvarez who took our dance class?” asked Eliot curiously as he fastened a button cam to the front of his shirt. “We got another session with her in a couple of hours.”

“She seems nice.” Parker shrugged. “She sure likes us a lot.” She grinned at Eliot then, who somehow found the smile infectious, unable to do anything but return it, despite his better judgement.

Nate advised that it maybe wouldn’t hurt to at least use the recording equipment in that session too, though neither of his team were really listening. They were recalling their dance class and how well they had done in it, not to mention how close they had gotten during said dance. It took a moment for both Eliot and Parker to realise what a bad train of thought that could potentially be, and suddenly they were very much concentrating on the job at hand.

That might’ve pleased Nate if he were paying attention but his mind had already switched to step two of today’s con. For that he needed Sophie to do what she did best. At least he knew that would go according to plan!


	11. Chapter 11

“Okay, I’m outside the building,” said Sophie into her earbud as she hopped out of the cab and looked up. “Fifth floor, right?” she checked.

“That’s the one,” Nate said in her ear from his seat back in the Leverage office. “That whole floor belongs to Kendall’s law firm, and according to his very helpful secretary he should be out until at least lunch time,” he confirmed. “That should give you plenty of time to sneak into his office and find us something incriminating.”

“Really, Nate,” she admonished him. “I don’t sneak, I don’t need to,” she reminded him with a smile he could see in his mind’s eye as she spoke.

“Well, if you find anything or need any help, I’ll be right here, listening in,” Sophie heard him say as she rode the elevator up to the fifth floor.

“It was clever of Hardison to alter the frequency on the buds just a little bit, keep our mission separate from the others,” she commented, her hand going absently to her ear. “Though I might feel better if I did know what was going on with Parker and Eliot,” she sighed.

Nate smiled at that, at the sound of concern in Sophie’s voice. Not that he was happy to know she was worrying, more that he liked how the team were coming to care for each other so much. They had each others backs from Day One when it came to the cons, but now it was almost as if they were becoming a family in a strange way, something none of them ever dreamt of finding here.

Shaking his head free of such thoughts, Nate re-focused on the task at hand, getting up from his desk and wandering through to the board room.

“Hardison is keeping an eye on our not-so-happy couple,” he assured Sophie as he went. “He’s there if they get in a fix.”

“Don’t think they’re gonna need me much.” The hacker grinned as he pointed at the vid screen which displayed the dance studio into which Eliot and Parker were now walking. “Time to get their groove on again, and they do that good, don’t you, guys?”

“Ah, my wonderful dancers!” Señora Alvarez was all over the couple the moment they came though the doors, stopping them from answering Hardison even if they had wanted to.

Though usually Parker reacted rather badly to people wanting to make a fuss of her, Eliot might have been amused to note she was taking the teacher’s manners with good grace and an excited smile today. He would have noticed if he wasn’t entirely annoyed to be the centre of attention once again, when all they were doing was attempting to blend! Thankfully, as his eyes scanned the room, he saw no evidence of the other undercover couple that had caused so much trouble. If he had to spend too much time in a room with ‘Roger’ he was liable to want to kill him six ways from Sunday after the way he upset Parker. With every couple’s schedule different and made to suit only them, every class was made up of different people, which had its upsides and downsides. One of the downs was that he and Parker were now being made a point of in front of a whole new set of people, and that they could well do without.

“Now, my beautiful class,” said the teacher, addressing the seven couples she had spread out in her studio. “Today we have a little exercise to complete before we begin dance,” she explained, with a flourish, the same way she said and did everything it seemed. “First of all, we have all the handsome men on this side of the room,” she gestured. “And then all our beautiful young ladies on the other side, facing their husbands.”

Parker couldn’t help but think the teacher was blind if she thought everyone here was either handsome or beautiful, although out of everybody Eliot was by far the hottest. That thought just led to others that she kind of wished hadn’t surfaced right now as she recalled the dream she had last night. It had ended badly and she woke with a start from the evils of her past that often haunted her, but before that had been different. Before she had been safe and calm and easy. She had known that everything was okay because she was being held close and warm by the loving arms of one Eliot Spencer. Sure, they woke up the day before all snuggly, and he had put his arms around her many times before, to catch her when she leapt from a height, or help her climb up into a window someplace, but never just to hug her, that would be weird. It hadn’t felt weird in her dream though, it had felt so good, and it had Parker wondering what that really meant...

“Alice? Alice White!” Señora Alvarez sing-songed as she waved her hand in front of Parker’s face, finally succeeding in getting her attention. “Alice, I know your husband is very attractive man, but right now we must concentrate, yes?” she smiled, only now making Parker aware that she had been staring at Eliot this whole time.

The poor girl had the good grace to blush, especially when she realised she had probably made Eliot a little mad by drawing more attention to them. What she didn’t know was that he was as flattered and confused as he was annoyed. When people stared at you that intensely there was usually only one reason, though of course Parker wasn’t most people and therefore could have her own set of reasons for all but leering at him. Now was not the time to think about it because they were in the middle of a con, under cover using different names, and apparently supposed to be listening to teacher!

“Is very simple,” she explained, going over to the first couple. “Our ladies are going to turn, face the wall, and our gentleman are going to move in a little closer, just a step,” she gestured for her instructions to be followed. “Now ladies, we are going to close our eyes and very slowly lean backwards,” she told them, at which point Eliot expected Parker to panic.

He was more surprised when she actually did as instructed along with a couple of the other women, landing safely in his waiting arms with a smile playing at her lips. It was a test for trust, and an old one at that, which Eliot had seen done before. Truth was he never really expected Parker to go with it so readily, and had he not had the arm strength he did possess, he might’ve dropped her completely on the floor with the suprise of it all.

“Hi,” she said as she tipped her head back and looked at him.

“Hi, yourself,” he replied with a smile he couldn’t help, as he righted her back onto her feet.

“Ah, now we see where the trust really lies,” said Señora Alvarez with a knowing look, as several couples who had not successfully completed the experiment looked daggers at each other or just plain embarrassed. “Now we move on to the dance... with a twist!” She grinned, producing a handful of scarves from behind her back.

“Did she just turn into bondage lady?” said Parker in a whisper, the look on her face decidedly disgusted and panicked at the same time.

Eliot opened his mouth to answer her and quickly closed it again. He wasn’t entirely sure what was going on here, but he couldn’t think it was going to end well somehow.

* * *

“What do we have, Sophie?” asked Nate through his earbud when the grifter seemed to be too quite for too long.

“I honestly couldn’t say,” she sighed as she checked no-one was around and slid open the bottom drawer of the file cabinet beside her.

Getting into Jeremy Kendall’s office had been the easy part. Charm and wit and years of practice when it came to grifting had the secretary or receptionist or whatever she was believing that Sophie was totally within her rights to be wandering about in the lawyers’ private office. This meant an hour had been spent so far, leafing through files, whilst a flashdrive copied as much of Kendall’s computer as possible in the time.

“I’m certain a lot of these names are couples from the Retreat’s records,” said Sophie as she flipped through another wad of paper, “but nothing that would prove for sure that there’s a connection, that he and his wife are actively trying to break up marriages and cash in on the divorces,” she sighed. “Of course, I...”

“What are you doing?” said a voice Nate didn’t recognise, but was certain in an instant must be Jeremy Kendall, even before Sophie ever said it.

“Monsieur Kendall,” she said in a perfect French accent. “I am so, ‘ow you say, at the end of my wits!” she declared, kicking closed the drawer she hoped he hadn’t noticed was open as she all but flung herself into his arms.

“Um... there, there,” the lawyer awkwardly patted the mysterious woman’s back as she appeared to sob on the shoulder of his expensive suit. “But you know you really shouldn’t be here...”

“This, I know,” said Sophie, her head coming up suddenly. “I should not need... er, service you offer, but my ‘usband, I have no trust for ‘im. He is not, ‘ow you say, a faithful man,” she explained, dabbing at tearful eyes with a handkerchief as she sat herself down on the edge of the desk.

Rambling on with her eyes wide and chest pushed out to maximum capacity, the grifter was pretty sure she was doing a good job of distracting Jeremy Kendall, as she reached back towards the computer across the desk and removed the flashdrive from the USB port.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems in your marriage, Ms Bouvier,” he said sympathetically, even as he encouraged her to get up from his desk and head for the door, “but you really need an appointment to talk to me about this.”

“I am sorry,” Sophie apologised, not worried that she had to leave since she had the flashdrive, but rather wanting the file she had left on the chair in the corner. “I ‘ave made such a fool out of me,” she cried. “And you are so kind, Monsieur Kendall, such a kind man,” she enthused, grabbing at his left hand and gasping as if surprised by the sight of a wedding band on his third finger. “Oh, you are lawyer de divorce, and yet married ‘appily?” she said as she swept by him too suddenly for him to stop her.

Nate listened in with a smile as she grabbed what must have been a photograph of Laurie Redfern, waxing lyrical on the beauty of Kendall’s wife and how lucky they both were to have found each other. He had no doubt that in the back and forth that followed, Sophie managed to grab whatever else she clearly wanted out of the office, he would suspect one of the files she’d been rifling through earlier.

A few moments later and she was clear of the office, a sigh escaping her lips as she realised her mission was complete and successful.

“Elegantly done, Sophie, as always,” said Nate with a proud smile as he heard the elevator doors open and close, ready to take the grifter back down to the ground.

“Thank you,” she said graciously, “but you know it might’ve gone better. Blokes usually fall for my charms a little easier than that.”

Nate wasn’t quite sure how to answer without getting himself into trouble. Any comment was bound to sound as if he was putting her down in some way, something he would never do on purpose. Telling her she was wrong probably wouldn’t help either, she would end up accusing him of over-doing it or taking pity on her, which she would not stand for. Instead the mastermind took the safer route of changing the subject.

“Eliot and Parker are doing just fine, by the way,” he told her, hoping it would take her mind off anything else.

“Oh, well, that’s good,” she agreed. “What are they doing? Dancing again?” she asked with a grin that wouldn’t shift - she did love watching the pair move the last time, they had such a way about them, so in synch, it was almost as if they really were a couple.

“Yeah, they dancin’ alright,” yelled Hardison, loud enough that Nate’s earbud would pick up his voice, “but you gotta see this to believe it, man,” he chuckled, as on the screen Parker led a blind-folded Eliot around the dance studio floor.

It was probably an odd sight to any person who was watching, a room full of couples all dancing around with all the men bound around the eyes with coloured scarves, led by their wives. In the middle of all this were Eliot and Parker, alias Paul and Alice, her with the biggest smile on her face, and him looking decidedly calm about his lack of control. They should be able to hear Hardison chuckling and making comments, but it didn’t seem to phase either of them. After months of working this way, with earbuds stuck in their ears all the time, regardless of the job, they were used to blocking out the other voices if they really needed to, and right now was one of those times.

“Remember,” Señora Alvarez told the class as the music reached a crescendo. “Actions, they speak louder than the words, and trust is a key to happy marriages.”

Parker heard her, kind of, mostly she was too busy concentrating on where she was putting her feet, replicating steps that Eliot had taught her last time and that some of the more able wives in the room were also doing. There were fights breaking out, albeit it mostly in whispers, people getting their toes trod on both literally and figuratively. Through it all, the one non-couple in the room held true to form and completed their task without incident. The music ended and so did the dance, with the teacher instructing the men to remove their blind-folds, with a wish that they had all learnt a valuable lesson here today.

“Did that feel weird to you?” asked Parker, using her quiet voice for once.

“I’ve been moved around blind-folded before.” Eliot shrugged, not sure why seeing her face fall made him feel so bad right now. “But never that well,” he added quickly, glad to see Parker smile again. “You did good, darlin’,” he promised her, either forgetting or just not caring that all he was saying could be heard elsewhere as well as being recorded for play back later!

Parker could not stop smiling. She never thought she could be so happy about the outcome of a dance class! This whole undercover thing had started out so badly, and now, even though they didn’t seem to be getting very far with busting the bad guys, she was really glad to be here. Up to now, she had only ever thought of Eliot as the well-built guy that busted heads. Now she was coming to realise he was also sweet and fun and a whole bunch of other things that she really liked. It was confusing, and yet, Parker had to admit in her own head at least that she didn’t mind the feelings he gave her, in fact she really did like them, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what they were!

* * *

“I still don’t understand why it was so difficult to keep Jeremy Kendall’s attention,” Sophie huffed when the team reconvened via comms sometime later. “Y’know, maybe he’s gay,” she considered from her place sat by the conference table at the Leverage offices.

“Gay?” Eliot echoed though the earbuds, as he sat on the couch, smiling inspite of himself as he watched his undercover wife spin circles around the room, still caught up in the dance from their last class it seemed. “Sophie the guy’s married and his wife runs a Couples Retreat.”

“Elton John was married,” the grifter snapped back, causing Parker to stop twirling, a frown on her face - clearly she hadn’t known that. “Eliot, you can’t judge a person’s sexuality solely on that.”

“Maybe he just wasn’t attracted to Sophie.” The little thief shrugged, as her fake-husband bit his lip in an attempt not to laugh.

“Parker!” Sophie yelled in her ear, clearly quite affronted, though the blonde did not appear to realise what she had said to cause offence.

“What?” she asked as she came to sit by Eliot on the couch, looking to him for an explanation he hoped not to have to give right now.

Thankfully, this was when Nate decided to take control.

“Look, we’re getting off the point here!” he told the whole team, and the two not present at the offices could just picture him, stern fatherly looks and all.

“Yeah, and I gotta do my thang with these computer files Sophie snagged,” Hardison pointed out, his reason for being quiet up to now made clear.

“And we have lunch in a few minutes,” said Parker, her hand at her stomach that was clearly protesting the lack of food.

“And more torture sessions with the psychotherapists this afternoon,” added Eliot with an eye-roll.

Nate audibly sighed at all the complaining, feeling like the father they sometimes accused him of being, with at least three if not four unruly kids to keep control of.

“Not long now, guys,” he assured them. “We’re almost there.”

With plans agreed and all information passed on, Parker and Eliot took the opportunity to offline comms for a while. Having an earbud shoved in your ear all day was fine and could be done, but sometimes it was nice to have a little peace in your own head! They could at least manage their lunch unassisted and planned to do so now. Of course, Parker could still hear Eliot even with the bud out and knew she would have to endure his complaining about his upcoming meeting with Dr Ritter this afternoon to be psycho-analysed. The little thief opened her mouth to answer, to say she was to looking forward to her own session with Dr Matthius either, but the words came out garbled and all were untrue.

Eliot didn’t seem to notice, but Parker told a bare-faced lie when she stated she had no wish to see Laura this afternoon. The fact of the matter was, she had some serious questions she needed to ask the woman who seemed so nice and genuine. Not everybody here was in on the scam to break up couples, they were all sure of that, and Dr Matthius sure seemed genuine in her attempts to reconcile couples, even Alice and Paul who were not actually in a real relationship. Parker knew she had to be careful in the questions she asked, but she had to know what the psychologist thought about the weird feelings she was getting for Eliot. She couldn’t make any sense out of them, maybe Laura could.


	12. Chapter 12

“Hey, hold on a sec!” said Hardison suddenly just as Eliot and Parker prepared to offline and go into their separate sessions with the psychologists. “I got a pattern here,” he said, waving for Nate and Sophie to come see what he had found.

“That’s a lot of meetings with a doctor,” said the grifter with a frown.

It seemed she was right too as the screen showed a minimum of weekly appointments with ‘DR’. Something had to be seriously wrong with a person to need that many visits surely.

“See, that’s what I thought too,” agreed the hacker, “but then I found this one here that actually says ‘doctor’," he said, showing her the entry. “So now I’m thinking, maybe DR are initials for a name.”

“Like Daniel Ritter,” said Nate, as realisation suddenly dawned. “The husband and one of the psychologists working together, that could make sense.” He nodded, his finger going to his ear then as he spoke very deliberately through comms to Eliot and Parker. “Guys, I need you to get Ritter’s cell,” he told them. “You can get into it somehow, right, Hardison?” he checked with the hacker then.

“So long as Parker or Eliot can send me a text from it, I can follow that back and we got a connection, probably to his diary or a calendar or whatever,” he considered. “Most professionals these days keep that kind of thing on a phone."

“It’s the new age filofax.” Sophie shrugged, recoiling when Hardison shot her a look of pure disgust. “What?” she wanted to know, but ought to have guessed he was now recalculating what he thought her age must be to have made what he considered to be such an out of date reference.

Right now of course that was not so important as the plan and the look on Nate’s face told them that.

“We’re on it,” said Parker as she stuck her head out into the hallway and looked around.

Several people were milling around, both staff and visitors to the retreat. She didn’t see either of the psychologists at first, then suddenly the Staff Only door came open a little and she listened for voices. One was definitely Laurie Redfern, the other seemed to be Ritter.

“Okay,” she said as she popped her head back in the room and gestured for Eliot to follow her. “Double reverse?” she suggested and he nodded his agreement as they went out into the hallways together.

Within seconds, Ritter exited the office, bumped into Parker, who had his cell in her hand with ease. Around the corner she quickly sent a text to Hardison then doubled-back, passing by her ‘husband’. Eliot assumed she would just hand over the phone and got a suprise when she grinned at him, leaning in to kiss his cheek as she stuffed Ritter’s cell straight into his pocket.

A moment later and she was gone, headed off to her session with Dr Matthius, leaving Eliot to get his bearings and head in to see Ritter. In his ear, Hardison asked that he give him time to swipe the info he needed off the phone and then at the end of the session make some excuse like he just found the psychologist’s cell on the ground or something to return it to him.

“Okay, I’m offlining comms now,” he told the team. “I told you, I can’t have you guys in my head and a head doctor too,” he reminded them.

“That’s fine, Eliot,” Nate agreed. “We’ll be able to follow along from the button cam and mic just in case anything incriminating comes up.”

“Great,” the hitter grumbled as he pulled the earbud out.

He was getting used to having the team there wherever he went thanks to comms and such, but while he was here he could do without eyes and ears with him at every turn. After all, this psychologist was liable to ask all kinds of questions he wasn’t sure how to answer, especially with things between him and Parker being so weird lately.

* * *

“Alice, you really shouldn’t be so nervous,” Dr Laura Matthius advised as Parker paced the room in front of her, ringing her hands and looking every kind of worried, though she had yet to say why.

“I’m not nervous,” she told the psychologist. “I’m just... I kinda don’t know what I’m feeling right now.”

Laura watched the poor woman pace some more, then realised she really wasn’t going to stop unless she was made to. On Parker’s next pass, she found her route blocked by the doctor, who reached for her hands. The blonde’s initial reaction was to back away, her arms flying up as she flinched away from the contact. Laura looked at her a little strangely but said not a word about it.

“Alice, please,” she urged her. “I’m here to help you, in any way I can,” she reminded her. “If you’re feeling mixed up with your emotions, I wish you’d just talk to me about it,” she encouraged as she herself sat down and gestured that Parker should do the same. “I won’t judge you, you know that, and anything you say here is completely private. I won’t even tell Paul, I promise.”

Parker stood still a moment, observing Laura, trying to puzzle out if she could really trust in the words she said. So many people made promises, said they were the ones who you could put your faith in. So many people Parker had allowed close to her and regretted it over and over. Now she had a team that she knew genuinely cared for her and that she liked well enough, one in particular she liked best of all and that was what was really bothering her. Of course, in order to find out for sure, she was going to have to put a little trust in this Dr Matthius, who wasn’t even necessarily a doctor at all. Sure, she was nice and all, but trusting anybody, even a tiny bit, was a huge deal for Parker, especially right now.

“Okay,” she said at length as she dropped down onto the couch opposite Laura, accompanied by an audible sigh of relief from the psychologist. “Whatever this is, that I’m feeling... I don’t get it,” she shook her head. “I mean, I thought he hated me and I didn’t really like him, except y’know obviously I know he’s hot, ‘cause duh! Not blind!” she giggled at how dumb she would have to be, before going on, almost unaware what confusion she was causing, not just here with Laura but also back at the Leverage offices.

* * *

“Parker? Parker!” Sophie called through her earbud but to no avail.

“She offlined,” noted Hardison with a slight frown. “I guess she’s just following Eliot’s lead.” He shrugged. “But no problem, we got the... Oh, no we don’t,” he said then, catching Nate’s attention,

“We don’t, what?” the mastermind checked as he came to peer over the hacker’s shoulder. “What don’t we have that we should?”

“Parker,” he said simply. “I mean, she got the camera on, but no sound,” he said, looking bemused. “I can’t think the equipment failed...”

Sophie frowned hard as she looked from Hardison to the vid-screen, which now showed a split of the silent feed with Parker talking to Dr Matthius, and Eliot just now heading in to meet with Dr Ritter, his audio loud and clear.

“Maybe she doesn’t want us to hear her,” she wondered aloud, though for the life of her the grifter couldn’t understand why.

She was baffled as to how Parker had become brave enough to even go into her session unaided, but when she was specifically asked to record both sound and picture, well, it was unlike her to break the rules in such a way. Of course, not one of the team knew that Parker had some rather private stuff she wanted to say in her session with Dr Matthius, and she hadn’t the words to explain it to them, so she just hadn’t bothered right now.

* * *

Laura tried to follow the stream of consciousness that came spilling from Alice’s mouth. Of course, she took all this in a completely different way than it was meant. Parker was having new feelings for a new man in her life, whilst Laura was listening to Alice talking about a shift back to love for her husband Paul after a prolonged period on shaky ground. Thankfully, the things Parker was saying worked both ways and her theory was that maybe Laura’s answer to her problem would too.

“Well,” said the doctor after a moments pause. “First of all, I’m sure that Paul never hated you,” she said kindly with a smile. “And I do understand why you’re feeling so confused,” she sympathised. “It is strange to feel two so completely opposing things about anyone or anything. You know, when I moved here from Europe, I was dreading having to start over, and yet at the same time so happy and excited to come live here in the States,” she smiled. “It’s kind of the same thing with you and Paul, I think,” she explained, as Alice made a face that proved she didn’t get it. “You’ve gotten used to seeing him as the enemy, as a problem, but now the old feelings are coming back, the attraction and the affection. The like and the dislike don’t fit together, and it’s scary trying to make that big life decision, choosing which feeling is stronger, and what the consequences of that choice might be.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Parker shrugged, hoping that she did understand as she thought she did. “So, how do I decide if I like him or not?” she asked, a straight-forward question that she hoped she would get a straight-forward answer too.

“There is no one certain way, Alice,” Laura told her, unhelpful as far as Parker was concerned, “but I honestly believe, from working with the two of you, that you and your husband have something very special,” she told her. “Now, I can’t tell you from just a couple of meetings like this if you’re meant to be together forever, nobody can make that decision but the two of you.”

“But that doesn’t help!” said Parker with pure frustration. “I mean, what if I want to be with him but he doesn’t want to be with me?” she shrugged helplessly. “What if I tell him and he laughs,” she considered with genuine fear in her eyes and tone at the very thought of it.

Laura felt terribly sorry for the poor young woman before her, and by the same token utterly bemused. The fact of the matter was, Alice White came across as so very confident and sure of herself in so many ways. She certainly seemed to know what she wanted the other day in the staff office when she was practically straddling her husband on a desk! Now she was spooked and in a complete panic at the idea of telling the very same man that she loved him.

Perhaps the problem was that the psychical side of their relationship worked much better than the rest of it, that’s what Laura had started to wonder, and yet she recalled the last session she had with Alice and Paul and immediately frowned. Was it not established that he had intimacy issues then? A distinct problem with his wife sleeping naked? Or maybe she had got it wrong, misunderstood what they were trying to tell her. Perhaps Paul was more concerned he would want his wife too much to ever get any sleep at all if she did not stay somewhat covered up. Perhaps he felt the need to concentrate on the other parts of the marriage that weren’t working so well, whilst the physical side always had?

“Alice,” said Laura eventually, realising she had been silent too long. “Do you love your husband?” she asked her straight out.

“Yes, obviously,” the blonde responded so fast that Parker actually wondered if she herself had spoken at all, or if someone else had answered for her.

Maybe it was just because she had rehearsed her character so well, she was answering on reflex as Alice. Maybe it meant something else entirely, but right now she was too afraid to question it, and far too busy trying to concentrate on what Laura was saying to her, for fear of missing something important!

“Do you believe he loves you?” came the next question, which was far ore difficult to answer.

Parker looked puzzled for a long moment before she answered.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, pretty sure that Eliot couldn’t possibly love her, because nobody ever had before, and yet he was kind of nice to her. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to tell,” she said, sadly shaking her head.

It made Laura wonder how she had ever got this far, to be married as she was and holding onto a man, albeit not well enough to have a happy union without the aid of outsiders. Of course, she was unaware that this relationship she was trying to unravel in her mind was all a charade.

“Have you tried asking him?” she suggested, at which Parker burst out laughing, startling the doctor a little. “Okay, so, maybe he’s not much for talking about feelings,” Laura belatedly realised, after all, she could see how Paul had been far from the emotionally aware type. “Then perhaps... Have you tried showing him how you feel?” she suggested.

That knocked all the giggly feelings out of Parker in an instant. Showing Eliot how she felt wasn’t a bad idea, but she could hardly wrap her head around the concept. She liked him a lot, he was hot as hell, and he was almost always nice to her these days. He treated her like the person she was, not the person he’d like her to be, and he never did let he down. Eliot would’ve killed that Roger guy for daring to touch her, of that Parker was certain, and she liked knowing it, liked it a very lot in fact.

“You think I should have sex with him,” she said matter-of-factly, stunning Laura for a moment, as Parker often did with those unaccustomed to her very straight-forward nature.

“Well, it’s not all about the actual sex,” she tried to tell her, faltering just a little over her explanation, “although it’s always good for that to be a part of any healthy marriage, I just... Um, Alice,” she started over, leaning in a little and meeting the other woman’s eyes. “Only you know how you really feel about Paul, and he is the only one who can let you know how he is truly feeling too,” she told her. “Now, I can give you all kinds of advice, offer up a hundred ideas, but the fact still remains that you two, talking to each other, spending time reconnecting with each other, that is the most important thing.” She smiled. “That’s what you’re here for, right?”

Parker just nodded, not knowing how else to respond. What she was really here with Eliot for was to bust the bad guys, bring this place down, and yet it was hard to hate everybody and everything at The Twin Souls Retreat. Laura certainly seemed genuine and not at all like she wanted to break up any couples. Her advice might yet prove to be the very thing that got Parker herself into some kind of relationship. As scary as that might seem on the surface, it would also make Dr Matthius somewhat of a miracle worker!


	13. Chapter 13

“So, let’s start with the most basic question,” said Daniel Ritter with a wide smile that Eliot just didn’t trust at all. “Why do you think you’re here at Twin Souls?”

“Well, we’re...” the undercover hitter began to answer only for the psychologist to interrupt him with an annoying chuckle and a wave of his hand.

“No, no, Mr MacDonald,” he told him. “Why do you think you’re here?” he impressed the point upon him. “I mean, it’s all very well you and your wife making decisions and choices together, but you don’t have to share the same opinions, do you?” he advised. “You must have your own personal reasons why you wanted to come here. Or perhaps you don’t want to be here, at all?” he suggested, watching Eliot a little too closely until he answered.

“I wanna save my marriage,” he said simply, thinking it was the easiest and most simple answer to the straight-forward question.

Besides, Eliot knew he had to answer in the least words possible since all had to be forced out through gritted teeth. This guy was already getting on his last nerve after just two minutes spent in his company. Hell, even Hardison had never learnt to be quite this annoying!

“I’m sure that you do.” The annoying man smiled too widely. “But what is it you’re trying to save, Paul?” he asked then. “Do you fear being alone?”

“No,” Eliot answered on automatic. “You don’t wanna talk to me about fears, son,” he promised him, realising perhaps a little too late that he was getting way out of character.

Grifting came fairly easy to him, bare-faced lying in the faces of criminals and bad guys was an easy enough thing, but only until his anger got the better of him. Eliot learnt a long time ago how to control his temper to a point, but he still had limits and those weren’t really as far as most normal people’s anyway.

“Look, I’m here because I love my wife and I want my marriage to work,” he said, trying for normal and forcing a smile. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Absolutely nothing." Ritter smiled back, though Eliot got the distinct impression he didn’t really mean it.

In complete contrast to Dr Laura Matthius who genuinely seemed to want to mend fractured relationships, Dr Daniel Ritter seemed hell-bent on having Paul see why he did not want to stay married to Alice. At this point, there was no doubt in Eliot’s mind that here sat one of the main culprits in the whole scandal of the Twin Souls Retreat. That didn’t exactly help with him controlling his anger since that made Ritter partially responsible for the suicide of their client’s husband, but he had to try, because they had to nail this son of a bitch to the wall for what he’d done.

“So, let’s talk about the lovely Alice.” The psychologist grinned too much. “She must be one hell of a woman to have held onto you this long.”

“She is,” answered Eliot easily, wondering at how simple it really was to lie about Parker’s good points as he went on. “She’s complicated to understand sometimes, but she’s honest in a lot of ways that most people aren’t, and she doesn’t play dumb games.”

“That’s wonderful,” Ritter enthused for all of five seconds, “but you used the word complicated,” he noted, jotting that down on his paper. “In what way?”

Eliot knew he had to pick his words carefully now, since he was Paul and Parker was Alice for as long as they were here. He couldn’t talk about things as they were, only as they were supposed to be for the couple he and the thief really weren’t.

“She’s... she’s not like any other woman I ever met,” he admitted. “Which is a good thing, most of the time, because I’m not always exactly like most other guys...”

Ritter nodded along with everything the undercover hitter said, his expression mostly unreadable as was the plan presumably. Mostly Eliot didn’t look at him, not least because it was easier to lie to a person when you weren’t looking directly at them, but also because he knew if he kept seeing that smug face he was going to put his fist in it. This was the guy, or one of the guys, working his ass off to break up the couples in this place. Eliot was never more sure of that fact than right now, as he finished what he’d been saying and Ritter once again latched on to the slightest negativity in his words or tone.

Eliot wasn’t the only one to notice. The devices through which the team were managing to record all that happened in this supposed therapy session showed in glorious Technicolor and surround sound just exactly what was going on. Sat around the table in the conference room, Sophie and Nate watched the vid-screen intently, whilst Hardison kept an ear open as he worked away on his laptop that he seemed to have been attached to for days, ever since this job started.

“With this Ritter guy trying so hard to make Paul leave Alice, he has to be in on this scam to break up couples,” Sophie considered aloud, as she sipped on a cup of tea.

“Hey, I don’t know about your gay vibe from before,” said Hardison, only half listening as he continued to work on his computer, “but these guys sure are call-buddies.” He shook his head, switching the view on his screen up onto the vid-wall, pushing the footage of Eliot and Ritter into a corner. “Check it out - that’s a serious amount of talk time.”

Nate looked up at the scrolling list of times and numbers from Ritter’s cell. Each call to a number that seemed to be Jeremy Kendall was highlighted in yellow and the vast majority of the entries were that colour. It was pretty damning evidence that they had a relationship of some kind going on, whether that be business or something else. Right now all roads pointed towards Ritter and Kendall working together, with the genuine possibility of Laurie Redfern herself having no idea of what her husband and employee were up to. Laura Matthius certainly seemed to want to help every couple in trouble that she met, though they would have to wait for Parker to report back on her latest meeting with the female therapist today to be sure.

“I still don’t understand why Parker has no audio,” he muttered, mostly to himself, “but that’s okay, we’re recording this footage of Ritter with Eliot, right, Hardison?” Nate checked.

“Absolutely,” the hacker confirmed, “but it ain’t worth Jack if we can’t catch him and Kendall making plans.” He shook his head.

“He’s right you know,” Sophie sighed. “Us knowing, or thinking we know, what these bastards are up to doesn’t help. We don’t have hard evidence to present to any authorities, only suspicions, and unless you’ve got another plan up your sleeve, I don’t see how we’re going to expose this place-”

“We’ll figure it out,” Nate interrupted her, though his eyes remained on the screen that was half covered in cell phone records, the other half displaying Parker chatting away to Matthius is silence and Eliot and Ritter all but arguing over Paul’s marriage to Alice.

“He’s really getting into this,” said Sophie thoughtfully. “Listen to him, defending Parker’s honour,” she said, turning up the volume as Eliot ranted over Ritter’s barely veiled accusations of ‘Alice’ possibly cheating on her ‘husband’.

“Wow,” said the mastermind, a little surprised himself. “That’s, er, that’s good commitment to the role.”

“So long as that’s all it is,” muttered Hardison, not at all thrilled at the prospect of Eliot actually caring too much about Parker.

The idea was ridiculous, of course it was, almost as insane as Parker liking Eliot that way. Those two were the least likely to form a stable relationship with anyone, never mind with each other. Strange then why Hardison suddenly couldn’t keep two remembered images out of his head, the first when he walked into the undercover couple’s room at the retreat to find Eliot almost on top of Parker, and the other, the two of them fake making out on a desk in the Retreat’s Staff Only office...

* * *

Parker headed back into Paul and Alice’s room before Eliot, and the rest of the team entirely expected her to put her earbud back in and explain what was going on in her meeting with Dr Matthius, for which they had perfect visual and yet no audio. Instead of this, Parker paced up and down the carpet, giving Sophie, Nate, and Hardison a strange view from the button cam she wore, with the bedroom going back and forth before their eyes.

“This is ridiculous,” said the grifter shaking her head. “Something must be wrong. This is strange behaviour, even for Parker,” she told Nate who looked somewhat concerned himself by now.

“There’s not much we can do if she’s not on comms,” he pointed out, not liking the feeling of helplessness any more than Sophie did, but then he had a drink in his hand to calm his nerves at least.

“Hey, I think she...” Hardison began to say, pointing to the screen as the view on the camera shifted suddenly... and then went black.

What the team couldn’t see (and were therefore somewhat concerned about) was that Parker had abandoned not just the camera and switched off mic she had been wearing, but the clothing they were attached to.

Alone in the room, she had come to a decision, based on the conversation she’d had with Laura just now. She liked Eliot, a lot, way more than Parker had ever really considered she could like anybody. She didn’t know much about love and yet from what the therapist had been telling her, she was seriously starting to wonder if that was what she was feeling here. One thing she did know was that she wasn’t going to be happy until she knew for sure how Eliot was feeling about her. From there she might be able to unscramble her own mixed up emotions about him.

Stripping off her clothes, Parker went to pull out more that Sophie had helped her to pack for Alice, eyeing the underwear choices with suspicion. This really wasn’t her style, the black lacy bra and panties set, since she rarely wore the top half of the ensemble and had been known to go without the bottom half quite often too. Still, Elliot seemed to be of the opinion that women should wear underwear to sleep in and since Laura said that ‘Alice’ should take any opportunity to show her ‘husband’ how much she cared, Parker wanted to try.

When Eliot strolled back into the room, telling the team in a once-sided conversation through his button cam and hidden mic that he was offlining for the night and everything was fine, he found his last sentence became somewhat disjointed from shock. Thankfully, the camera and mic were both switched off simultaneously as he came upon Parker, looking like she was trying to strike a pose of some kind on the bed, in what Eliot could only describe as sexy lingerie he honestly hadn’t expected her to own.

It took the hitter a moment to get past what his eyes were seeing and make his brain function properly. He was just a man after all and it wasn’t as if Parker wasn’t totally hot, not least in the lacy underwear she was currently wearing. These past couple of days he had gotten used to her company, come to be almost comfortable with her presence and her closeness. They had woken up in each others arms twice now and remembering the feel of her body against his wasn’t exactly helping now as he stared at her. The moment he realised his gaze hadn’t shifted in a while, and the fact his jeans were starting to feel uncomfortable, Eliot told himself he was being a fool.

“Parker, what the hell...?” he asked her with obvious annoyance as he threw Hardison’s gadgets into the nearest chair.

“You wanted me to wear underwear.” The thief shrugged as she moved, gesturing to her body that Eliot was already having trouble keeping his eyes off. “I’m doing what you asked”

There really was no arguing with Parker-logic, Eliot had found, since there was always proper sense at the root of it. The trouble was, that sense was generally buried under a good few layers of crazy. He had asked her to wear underwear when they went to bed, and she was complying, though it hadn’t really occurred to him to want to sleep this early. He was almost too afraid to wonder if she had anything else but rest on her mind.

“Well, yeah,” he considered what she was saying and was forced to agree she was right, “but I didn’t mean-”

“Ssh,” she told him, the surprise coming less from the fact she was shushing him and more the feel of her finger at his lips as she knelt up on her knees before him. “You’re thinking too much,” she said simply, turning Eliot around by his shoulders and pushing so he had little choice but to sit down on the edge of the bed.

He meant to ask her again what the hell was going on, but Eliot soon realised that he had no words left to use as Parker’s hands stayed at his shoulders, working out the stress-related knots that had formed too easily today. 

“What are you doing?” he managed to ask, though his voice came out much less angry than he meant.

“It’s relaxing,” said Parker in her usual tone, as if he was dumb for asking the question. “I’m showing you I care. That’s okay, right?” she checked.

Though she didn’t get an actual answer, Parker took Eliot’s lack of reponse as a positive sign. After all, he certainly did seem to be relaxing, not yelling at her or trying to get away. Of course, she didn’t know that whilst parts of him were getting totally relaxed, there were other areas that Eliot was finding reacted differently to this odd experience with Parker.

As if her hands massaging his shoulders wasn’t distracting enough, knowing what she was wearing, or rather what she wasn’t wearing, certainly didn’t help at all. He could see her bare thighs either side of him, could feel the heat of her body against his back, and none of it was doing anything for his concentration or will-power. If they went on like this, Eliot knew he was going to lose control, that his mind was going to give in, in favour of base instinct taking over.

“Parker...” he all but whispered, in such a tone as she had never heard from him before.

Her hands ceased movement on his shoulders as he turned to look back at her, and Parker saw a look in Eliot’s eyes she really hadn’t expected. She wasn’t naive, she knew about guys and sex and all, but it hadn’t exactly occurred to her that her being nice to Eliot would get him this worked up. Perhaps with anybody else she might’ve been worried, with another guy that had a rep like his, but this was Eliot who she knew and liked, maybe more than liked. He was obviously hot, less obviously sweet, and from what she could tell right now, he really, really wanted to have sex with her.

Reacting on instinct alone, as was Parker’s usual way of handling things, she moved to put her lips on Eliot’s own, and fell into a passionate kiss that was by no means one-sided. Twisting her body around his, assisted by his arms that reached to hold her, Parker soon ended up sat in Eliot’s lap, straddling him, the two of them getting hot and heavy so suddenly it shocked them both.

They stopped as fast as they started, staring wide eyed at each other and breathing hard. Neither of them were so dumb they didn’t know where they were headed if they carried on, and yet Eliot was determined to be the responsible one out of the two of them, the one to take care and be sensible even in this situation where he’d kind of like to just lose himself.

“Parker,” he breathed. “You do get that we’re not really married, right?” he checked, just a little concerned that she was confused somehow, since she had a habit of that, especially when they were on the grift.

The look on her face told him he was being an idiot long before she ever spoke.

“Duh!” She rolled her eyes at what she considered to be his stupidity. “I just... I wanna do this,” she told him plainly, same as she said everything.

Eliot didn’t need anymore encouragement than that as he pulled her into another kiss, the pair of them falling back onto the bed in a tangle of limbs. God only knew what the consequences of this might be, but right now, neither Eliot or Parker were thinking about that. Honestly, they really weren’t thinking much at all, but feeling everything so strongly and, right now, not wanting it to end.


	14. Chapter 14

Parker woke up to the strange feeling of strong arms around her body, and aches in muscles she hadn’t used in a good long while. It took her a minute to get her bearings, to recall what had happened a few hours before. It was pretty dark now, and she soon remembered coming back from her session with Laura and getting up close and personal with Eliot.

That went a little differently to what she expected, but somehow they had missed their dinner and slept through to what seemed to be the middle of the night. Parker was just glad nobody had come looking for them, not that she would have been embarrassed at being caught either naked or having sex with her ‘husband’ but she hardly wanted the interruption.

She frowned some as she thought about what happened, how they had ended up asleep in each others arms again. She was fast getting used to Eliot’s arms around her when she slept, which confused the little thief a great deal. Human contact usually bothered her, she feared the closeness and what it meant, how people might take advantage of her. Parker had what Sophie called ‘trust issues’ and yet when it came to Eliot, she never was worried. Out of all the members of the team, she had most contact with him, even before they came here as an undercover couple. She never had flinched when he touched her, she willingly threw herself into his arms a couple of times, and never really thought about it until very recently.

Talking to Laura yesterday had made her sure she liked Eliot but Parker still wasn’t certain he liked her back. The psychologist had suggested finding ways to show her man how she felt, that she cared about him, and so that was what the thief had planned to do. She put on her underwear because that was what he wanted and she offered him a shoulder massage to ease the stress she was sure he was feeling. The sex was kind of a consequence, an after thought, and totally not what she planned.

It was strange how it just kind of happened. All Parker knew was that being close to Eliot gave her all kinds of warm and tingly feelings that were equal parts scary and good. He didn’t seem to be wanting to run away from her at all and when he’d said her name in such a way and looked at her with this hunger in his eyes, even she knew he was feeling it too.

It had occurred to Parker a long time ago that Eliot was incredibly well built and that he would probably be awesome at sex. She certainly hadn’t been wrong as the experience had proven to be all kinds of explosive and more than satisfying. The strangest part was that when their passion was finally sated, their bodies exhausted from the activity, he had wanted her close as they fell asleep, and Parker had genuinely wanted to be there.

Sex she’d had before, pretty good sex, though it never that felt quite like this. The cuddling part was new, she’d never done that before, and never really thought she would want to until she had experienced it. Falling asleep and waking up with her head on Eliot’s chest and his arms around her was by no means a bad thing, in fact she almost liked it as much as the activity that led to it, if that were possible!

Tilting her head to glance up at him then, Parker got a shock when she realised her pillow/protector was not as asleep as she had thought. In fact, he was staring down at her with a smile playing at his lips that she wasn’t sure how to take.

In her state of usual blind panic when she was feeling uncertain about herself or others, Parker sat bolt upright in the bed, eyes darting around as if she were already planning an escape route... and yet, she didn’t actually move anymore yet.

“Hi,” she said flatly, as far away from comfortable as she possibly could be, despite revelling in that very feeling just moments before.

“Mornin’,” she heard Eliot answer, though she didn’t look back.

One leg shifted as if to get out of the bed and yet Parker was pretty sure she had nowhere to run if she did. Besides, she didn’t really want to leave, she hadn’t wanted to move at all from her safe little place until she realised she was being watched. It was instinct to try and get away, and fighting that wasn’t easy, but she was going to have to if she ever wanted a night like this again.

“So... that happened,” she said at length, almost glancing back over her shoulder but changing her mind at the last minute.

“Yeah,” replied Eliot, not seen by Parker still as he pushed his hair back off his face and let his eyes adjust to the semi-dark of the room.

He hadn’t been awake long, just a minute or two, lying there watching Parker breathe in and out. She looked so sweet and angelic somehow, in spite of the fact that he knew she was pretty much off her axle a lot of the time. Plus, their activities last night proved she was neither naive nor inexperienced as a pure angel might be.

It was strange how things had happened between them. Eliot wasn’t blind, he knew from the start that Parker was hot but she was both apparently crazy and a member of his team, so he had steered clear of ever thinking of her as a potential partner for sex. Romance was even further from his mind, as he’d decided a long time ago he couldn’t possibly be built for long term, and yet here he was, playing the part of a husband determined to stick with his wife and feeling oddly protective of her.

It scrambled Eliot’s mind to think about it too much. He could say he just got lost in the lie or maybe caught up in the moment. After all, Parker had come on to him and any man had his limits in those kind of circumstances. Still, he knew it wasn’t just about the amazing sex, it was equally as much the closeness that had somehow developed between himself and Parker. It was as if he could hold onto her forever and not care at all. When things made her cry, made her mad, stressed her out, he just wanted to help, to protect her in all kinds of ways...

“This is weird,” her voice cut through his thoughts like a blade. “I don’t usually hang around... y’know, after,” she explained, still not looking at him yet, Eliot noted.

“Long time since I did either,” he admitted, trying to recall an occasion and finding his mind easily spun back years without a stop.

Even in the dark, when he looked to her back then, Eliot could see Parker was shaking. It wasn’t exactly the coldest night but she was naked and the covers of the bed had dropped away from her body when she sat up so fast.

“Hey,” he said, moving up closer behind her and pulling the blankets up around her arms and shoulders. “You’re gonna freeze,” he told her, though Parker already knew that wasn’t why she was shivering.

“I’m not cold,” she said, her eyes closing of their own accord just as soon as his hands made contact with her body again.

Far from shifting away from Eliot’s touch as she might do with anyone else, Parker found herself leaning back into his embrace. His arms went easily around her and she tipped her head to look at him then. There was no question asked, no words said at all. What she needed to know was written in her eyes - was this okay?

It shouldn’t be right, Eliot knew. He shouldn’t be getting into this with her because he was struggling to come up with a way in which it could possibly end well. The only problem was, he was finding it even harder to care right now as he leaned down to kiss her lips. She responded favourably, and before long they were half way towards round two of what they’d started hours before.

Already naked and highly aware of how good this could be, neither Parker nor Eliot really wanted to stop, and yet between fevered kisses she felt she just had to get a couple of things straight.

“You know I like you, right?” she asked him, as his lips moved down her neck. “You got that?”

“Kinda guessed,” he mumbled against her skin.

They fell back onto the bed, a tangle of limbs as they fought to keep contact even when the covers got in the way.

“And you like me?” she asked from her place now on top of him, gasping through her words as he touched her.

“Sure,” he agreed, moving in for another kiss, but at this point she very deliberately backed off.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head, getting a hold of her passion somehow and putting on the brakes so suddenly Eliot was visibly startled. “I mean like... really like me,” she checked, as she gazed down at him, trying to read his expression.

It was an impossible task, as she guessed it would be since Eliot was hardly one for emotions at the best of times, her own ability to know what anyone was ever thinking severely lacking.

“Parker...” he began, unsure how to answer at first, determined not to lie just for the sake of getting laid, but all too fast realising he didn’t have to. “Yeah,” he said with a nod, his voice full of genuine surprise at the mini-epiphany he was experiencing as he gazed up at her.

She looked positively giddy at that, as he tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled up at her.

“I don't know when it happened exactly,” he told her honestly, “but yeah, I do like you, Parker... a lot,” he realised aloud.

“Cool.” She giggled, perhaps quite the understatement given the revelation, but Eliot never said anything about that as she crushed her lips to his and made it very clear she was done talking now.

Eliot flipped the pair of them over, as lost in the moment as she was, and somewhat overwhelmed by the fact that he could both want and care for Parker this much.

There would be serious consequences to all of this come morning, and yet right now, neither of them could seem to care at all.

* * *

Parker didn’t understand why Eliot had insisted they didn’t tell the team they were together, at least not yet, but she went along with it because making him happy made her feel all kinds of giddy lately. She said not a word about the fact she was sitting in his lap for their team meeting, after all, they could only hear them and not see them in the privacy of their own room.

It was after breakfast, something both halves of the not-so-fake-now couple had really needed after their night-long activities. Techicnally, they should be headed to their morning sessions in the next half hour but from what Hardison was telling them, maybe they wouldn’t be staying at the retreat long enough for that!

“Okay, so we did a little cross-referencing between your man Kendall’s appointment book and Ritter’s calendar,” the hacker explained. “Both had the name of the same hotel marked down for 8pm last night, so off I went for a stake-out, got me the money shot,” he declared with a grin the others could practically hear.

“Money shot?” Parker frowned at the same moment, clearly not getting it, until one look from Eliot made it clear what the hacker was getting at. “Oh!” she gasped suddenly. “The guy was kissing the guy?” the thief checked she was indeed right. “’Cause I mean, that’s fine, gay people are cool, but isn’t Kendall married to Laurie?”

“See, I told you he was gay, but did you listen? Noooo,” said Sophie over the comms.

Eliot rolled his eyes at her attitude. Sure, she was right in what she said, but it was hardly the point right now. The point was the job and the con, and bringing these guys to justice, regardless of their sexuality.

“The fact is, from the information we have here, it would seem that Kendall and Ritter have been having an affair for some time,” Nate explained, as desperate as Eliot to get back to the matter at hand apparently. “Hardison found that the name used to book the hotel room last night was Danny Wrangler.”

“That same name shows up on a regular basis in the hotel records,” the hacker confirmed. “And when I searched for some background it turns out it might just be the real name of our Dr Daniel Ritter.”

“So he’s not really a psychologist?” Parker checked. “I’m lost,” she admitted.

“No, he is,” said Sophie. “It actually turns out that he does have qualifications, but his getting a job anywhere reputable would have been next to impossible after several accusations of indecent behaviour.”

“Indecent, how?” Eliot asked curiously, though wondered in the next moment whether he ought to have done so.

“We got sexual harassment, verbal abuse, one count of GBH,” Hardison reeled off the list. “Our boy has quite the rap sheet. Still, Kendall seems not to care ‘bout that.”

“From what we can tell from emails and such,” Nate continued, “they’re the two behind this scam, trying to make enough money to run away together, maybe set up their own business far away from here where nobody knows them.”

Parker was wearing a look of confusion and yet hope at the same time.

“So, Dr Matthius and Ms Redfern,” she said carefully. “They’re not bad guys?”

“Not as far as we can tell, no,” said Sophie with a smile that her friend and team-mate could not see, though she wore it for the same reason.

It was clear Parker had made a connection with Laura Matthius and put a little trust in her. For her sake, it was worth finding out she was almost definitely legitimate. Sophie could almost imagine the grin on the thief’s face as she learnt that news though it was only Eliot that bore witness to that smile... and the wriggly happy dance that went with it.

“Parker,” he hissed as the moving of her body in his lap started to cause a problem.

“Oops, sorry.” She giggled, looking anything but, and planting a silent kiss on his cheek that the others were unlikely to notice as Nate started up talking again.

“Dr Laura Matthius actually does have qualifications in her field,” he explained. “They just, er, they don’t technically stand up here in the States because she got them abroad.”

“But we can figure this out without her getting into trouble, right?” said Parker urgently. “Because without her, I wouldn’t-” She stopped short of finishing her sentence as her eyes met Eliot’s and she remembered she wasn’t supposed to talk about the two of them and how close they’d gotten. “Um, I wouldn’t have-”

“I think what Parker means is, Dr Matthius really helped her out while we’ve been here,” said the hitter, deciding it was safer for him to talk for her than let her make something crazy up on her own. “She seems decent.”

“She probably is,” agreed Sophie. “We have no fight with her, or with Laurie Redfern as it turns out,” she admitted. “Sure, she had a fake couple in the place, but she probably believes they’re making her look good, not breaking up marriages for her husband’s nasty little scheme.”

“So the plan is this guys,” said Nate suddenly cutting in again. “I want you to gather up your stuff, get ready to go. We have all the evidence we’re going to get, so we’re gonna figure out the best way to use it.”

“Does that include the bug in the office?” asked Parker, making everybody sit up and take notice, most especially Eliot who very nearly dropped her on the floor from surprise.

“What bug?” he asked her, even more confused when she leapt up from where she sat in his lap and went for the door. “Parker!” he called after her, actually getting to make chase only she waved a hand that dismissed him immediately.

“Where’s she going?” asked Hardison, his voice full of worry.

“I’m guessing the office?” offered Sophie since it was where Parker seemed to think she’d left a bug.

Moments later the thief returned with a recording device in her hands, to the baffled expression of her fake husband and too many questions in her ear.

“I stuck it on the phone when I was in there,” she told them all at once, handing over the device to Eliot who still looked bemused by the turn of events.

“Seriously?” he asked her. “When?”

“Between the flash drive and the making out?” She shrugged like it was no big deal.

He could be mad about her keeping secrets or whatever, but there wouldn’t be any point. Besides, Eliot had to admit he was impressed that she thought to do that and had the time given how things went down. Now he knew why she hadn’t come straight out of that office when he called, she just wasn’t done. He was smirking in that way only he could as he silently told her she’d done good.

“Well, that does explain why I was getting a signal from device I didn’t know was planted,” said Hardison in both their ears, “but hold on a sec, the recording will be here, I just gotta... Yeah, I got it,” he declared just a moment later. “Gonna take me some time to track through this though, see if we got anything incriminating,” he told them, though neither Eliot or Parker were particularly listening.

She liked the idea of him being all pleased with her, all proud and such. So much so in fact that she was already climbing back on top of him, even as the team continued their chatter through the earbuds.

“Okay, good work, Parker,” said Nate, “but it means a slight change of plan. You two will be staying there just a little longer,” he told them, expecting an argument and pleasantly surprised when he didn’t get one.

“That’s cool, Nate,” said Eliot with a smirk that only Parker could understand as he pulled her further onto the bed with him. “We can find ways to fill the time.”

“Oh yeah, we’ll be fine.” She smiled back. “Talk to you guys later,” she said cheerily.

“Hey, guys, don’t just... take out your earbuds,” Nate said to himself apparently as they did just that. “Sometimes I just don’t know how to deal with those two!”


	15. Chapter 15

“Really, Nate? This early?” asked Sophie as she wandered into his office and found him pouring a healthy measure of scotch into a glass, despite the fact it was barely mid-morning.

“I just... er...” the Mastermind foundered some over an excuse before deciding it was easier just to change the subject entirely. “How’s Hardison doing with that audio from the bug?” he asked.

Sophie’s eyes narrowed and he ought to have known that she was not going to let it go so easily.

“He’s doing just fine,” she said simply. “Now, back to my question about the booze?” she tried again, taking the seat opposite his desk and crossing her legs as she sat down. “Nate, you can’t keep doing this. It’s getting worse.”

“If you knew what I knew, Sophie, you might be turning to the bottle yourself,” he told her, taking a gulp from his glass, watching over the rim as the cogs turned in the grifter’s head.

She was good at reading people, probably better than him in some ways, and yet she didn’t seem to have noticed what he was sure of by now. There was a long moment when she considered asking what he meant and Nate genuinely thought about telling her, until both finally realised it was unnecessary.

Sophie gasped with sudden realisation, a light dawning in her head and all the pieces falling into place. Getting up from the seat, she rushed to the door and looked out. Hardison was in the boardroom with his headphones on, listening to the audio from the bug Parker had planted. He would probably be there for hours, given the two huge bottles of orange soda and giant bag of gummy frogs he was primed with. Still, Sophie wasn’t taking any chances as she closed Nate’s office door and returned to her seat, whispering across the desk at him.

“You think something real is going on with Eliot and Parker,” she gasped, not a question but a statement since she was already sure she had got his full meaning.

“Well, I think there’s a high possibility,” he told her with consideration as he leant back in his chair. “It really never occurred to me before. Honestly, I was more worried about Hardison falling for her and that causing problems,” he shook his head. “Oh, I know Parker is, er, off the rails or whatever, but I thought Eliot at least had more sense,” he said putting a hand to his head as it began to ache already.

“Nate, it’s not about good sense,” Sophie reminded him, though her brain was running at a mile a minute putting this together still.

She had seen signs, or rather heard them, when it came to real feelings developing between the hitter and the thief. He was so quick to defend her, so angry when that Roger bloke upset her. She didn’t want anyone to hear her latest conversation with Laura Matthius and had stumbled on a reason why she liked the woman so much. Things were different this morning too, the morning after the night before when both Eliot and Parker had offlined without warning...

“Oh God, I think they had sex last night!” she exclaimed suddenly, causing Nate to all but choke on his scotch.

“Yes, unfortunately, I figured that out too,” he said as he wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “Now, I know, it’s not my place to tell them they can’t have... a relationship,” he opted for, not sure how else to go about discussing this, “but it’s going to complicate things.”

“Maybe.” The grifter nodded her agreement. “But, I mean, I can’t deny that when I think about it, they do make an adorable couple.” She smiled without really meaning to until she saw the look on Nate’s face. “I’m just saying, I think they’d be so cute together. The crazy little thief to keep him on his toes; the protective hitter to keep her safe. It’s a perfect opposites attract match,” she reasoned, “and neither of them ever has to lie about who they really are.” She shrugged.

“Yes, but they’re on our team,” the mastermind pressed his point, sitting up in his chair as if leaning over the desk would make him more right. “We’re just now establishing a... a dynamic that works. This is going to confuse things.” He shook his head.

“It’s clearly not confusing them,” said Sophie thoughtfully. “And I know what you’re thinking, Nate, but don’t. They’re not us,” she told him with such a look in her eyes that he couldn’t quite read.

Perhaps disappointment that their own relationship was not running so smoothly or quite in the same direction as Eliot and Parker seemed to be with their own. Maybe she was making a different point entirely but there wasn’t time to figure it out or ask her as the office door suddenly swung open within seconds of a knock that went unanswered.

“Guys, you gotta come hear this.” Hardison grinned from the doorway. “I got somethin’. Somethin’ gooood,” he told them, encouraging them to follow.

Out in the board room, Nate and Sophie listened as Hardison flipped on the audio that now blared through the speakers of the room instead of just the hacker’s headphones. There was some muffled, garbled chatter that the sensitive bug had picked up in the room, then a moments silence before Ritter’s voice became loud and clear.

“Jer, it’s Danny. We got another good batch in this week, probably at least three sets of clients, plenty of cash, easy to break up, but this has to be the last,” he explained, apparently to a voicemail system, since no response could be heard. “I can’t go on like this, Jer, I can’t. I need to be with you, not just when we can both spare an hour, when your wife isn’t looking. I need you all the time. I can’t wait for us to get away from here. I love you.”

“Blimey,” said Sophie as Hardison shut off the audio. “These two really are serious about this.”

“Yeah, serious about duping couples into divorce and bankruptcy... and worse,” he recalled with distaste. “I mean, them having an affair and running off together, that hurts Kendall’s wife and that’s bad for her, but what they’re doing here, destroying all these other relationships to fund their getaway.” He shook his head. “No, we’re not letting them get away with that.”

“I don’t know what y’all are planning,” said Hardison, “but with the connection I had to Ritter’s phone and the messages recorded on the bugs, could be I could hack into Kendall’s phone too, get the original voicemail message, maybe more,” he explained, hoping it was helpful.

Nate paced the floor in front of the vid screen that displayed pictures of the Retreat Staff, green wavy lines of audio feed in another area, and shots from the security cameras on the third set of panels.

“Okay,” he said to himself, putting a finger to his ear. “Eliot? Parker?” he called for their attention, hoping they may be back on comms by now. “Guys? You there?” he tried again, but to no avail.

“What the hell those two doing, man?” asked Hardison, though his eyes never left the laptop screen.

He missed the look that Nate and Sophie shared over his head and that was probably a good thing. Those two had a very definite idea of just exactly what their hitter and thief were up to, and it was not something they particularly wanted to share yet.

* * *

“Wow,” Parker was gasping for air as she fell back against the pillows beside Eliot. “Seriously, I have never said this to a guy before, y’know and meant it, but that might actually feel as good as free falling off a fifty storey building.”

Eliot wasn’t sure how he would take such a remark from anybody else, but this was Parker. Knowing her the way he did told him that was a huge compliment, and yet he hadn’t really the energy to be too smug. They were, without question, the two fittest members of the Leverage team, and yet they had apparently managed to exhaust each other with their activities. Perhaps that wasn’t so very surprising when Eliot caught sight of his watch and realised how long they had been enjoying themselves.

“Damn, Nate’s probably going crazy right about now,” he said, pointing Parker’s attention to the timepiece on the nighstand.

“Oops?” she responded with mostly apathy as she propped herself up on her elbow. “Do you care?” she checked, as she leaned over Eliot, genuinely curious.

“About what Nate thinks?” The hitter shrugged. “No, not really, but the con still matters, Parker,” he reminded her. “We have to finish this thing, for Natalie James and her husband that she lost and the kids she has to bring up alone now,” he told her, as he reached out to gently push her hair off her face.

She knew he was right, and yet Parker also wanted to be a little selfish. Staying here with Eliot, she could get into that idea. Never in her life did the little thief recall a time when she felt this comfortable with anybody, this safe and warm and all. It bothered her some that this happy place she had found was going to get ruined the second they stepped out of the Twin Souls Retreat.

“What happens after?” she asked. “I mean, when we get out of here, when we’re not Alice and Paul anymore, do we just go back to how we were before?” she checked.

It wasn’t a trick question, Eliot knew. She wasn’t trying to trick him into saying he loved her or making a commitment in the dizzy after-sex haze they were currently in. Parker was straight and honest in all things, which was rare for a thief, but it was just part of the enigma that was his Parker. Man, it felt good to realise that she really was his right now.

“Parker, we’re not Paul and Alice,” he reminded her. “We’re Eliot and Parker, and we still will be when we get out of this place,” he explained, pulling her gently down beside him and putting his arm round her as her head dropped onto his chest. “I can’t promise you that it’s going to work out, darlin’, because nobody can promise you that, but I’m not gonna act like this didn’t happen just ‘cause the con is over.”

“That didn’t really answer my question,” she pointed out, a slight frown marring her features. “I mean, I never did this before, I never wanted to, I...” she stumbled a little on what she meant to say, her head suddenly coming up off Eliot’s chest so fast she nearly clocked him in the chin. “It’s kinda scary,” she admitted then, not something she would often allow herself to think nevermind say, but Eliot seemed to get it.

“I know.” He nodded his agreement, though hadn’t a clue what else to say right now.

Admitting he was as petrified as Parker was at the prospect of having a real romantic relationship with anyone was more than he was willing to give right now. She knew he cared about her a lot, liked her a lot, and sure didn’t object to the sex they’d been having. Still, the word love was a step too far right now for either of them, and honestly, this was neither the time nor place for talking this over, not when the con was hotting up the way it was.

“We should check in with the team,” he said, pressing a sweet kiss to her lips before moving to get out of bed and pull on some clothes.

Parker waited a moment before following suit. Honestly, she was happy enough that Eliot didn’t want to make this thing they had any more than it was. The sex was good, the caring and sharing was the weirdest kind of nice, and there was nothing she could find to complain about, so she wouldn’t. Besides, her team-mate and lover made a good point, they had a con to finish, a woman and kids that needed some kind of revenge and hopefully closure following the death of a man who died too young and too soon.

“Nate?” said Eliot as he pushed his earbud back in and Parker grabbed her own.

“Hey, guys,” she greeted them, only to realise she was being yelled at before they even began.

There was a confusion of everyone talking over each other, complaints that Eliot and Parker had offlined so long, and everyone trying to get their opinion across. After almost five minutes of this, a loud shrill whistle cut through everything, and Nate and Hardison looked wide-eyed at Sophie, shocked by her behaviour, as all four members of the team grabbed their ears in pain.

“We don’t have time for this,” the grifter pointed out. “We need to get these awful people exposed and get Eliot and Parker out of the retreat, before Kendall or Ritter realise we’re onto them,” she reminded the team.

“You found something on the bug?” checked Parker with a grin. “Did we get the bad guys?”

“Almost there, mama,” Hardison told her proudly, as he made a couple of extra clicks on his laptop. “Okay, I done my part, but I need you guys to do yours.”

“Anything to get outta here,” growled Eliot in his usual state of permanent annoyance, though honestly it was all show today.

The truth was, he was kind of glad he had come to the Twin Souls Retreat, and even more so that he’d come along with ‘Alice White’. He meant what he said about not being sure how this relationship with Parker would turn out, but one thing was for sure, it certainly wouldn’t be dull!


	16. Chapter 16

“Okay, guys, you all ready to go?” asked Nate through his earbud, as he hovered by the vid screen, with Sophie sat at the table behind him.

“The bug is on the announcement system,” Parker confirmed. “And we’re all packed to leave,” she added, stood by the door to the room that bore the names ‘Paul MacDonald and Alice White’ for the last time, a suitcase in her hand.

Eliot was right there beside her with his own luggage, all ready to get out of this place and move on from the con that had so many consequences, both good and bad. They had just a few minutes til someone came looking for them, asking why they never showed up for this mornings class. If the rest of the team were as on top of things as they said they were, there was no reason at all why this plan shouldn’t be underway already.

“Classes will get out in the next minute according to this,” said Sophie, checking the laptop screen that Hardison had let her in charge of. “It’s now or never.”

“Don’t forget, guys, you wait until the beep in the message, then you move,” Nate advised Eliot and Parker. “Otherwise people are going to be suspicious about how you packed and left so fast.”

“We got it,” the hitter agreed with his usual tone of aggravation at being told his task too many times over.

Parker was, as always, unphased by his apparent foul mood, because she knew better. Their morning together had been fun and made him happy, there was no hiding it. She knew she was as good at sex as Eliot was, and she was pretty sure he’d smiled at her more in the past 24 hours than he had at the whole team in the last six months. Acting on pure instinct and with no explanation needed or given for her actions, she leant in and planted a sweet kiss on his lips, just because she could.

“Okay, Sophie. Now,” Nate gave the grifter the signal, putting paid to Eliot asking Parker for any kind of explanation as the announcement system went off with its usual ‘bing bong’ and then a voice was heard.

Of course, all the people at the retreat spilling out into the corridors listened out for Laurie Redfern’s dulcet tones or similar and were very surprised to here a man speaking, an apparent ‘Jeremy Kendall’ who was informing a caller that this was his voicemail and to leave a message after the tone. Instantly they knew it was Dr Ritter speaking next, and listened intently as he seemed to profess love and adoration for the guy whose phone he had called.

Sounds of shock and awe could be heard through the door into Eliot and Parker’s room, and was written on the faces of each person Nate looked at via the camera feed back at the office. One door suddenly swung open and out popped Daniel Ritter himself, staring with wide eyes at the speakers playing his own message to the whole resort.

“No, no, no, this is not happening!” he said frantically, just as a second message started up.

“Jer, we gotta do something about this fake couple you put in here. I already had two clients tell me this morning that Bethan hit on them, she’s being too obvious, she’s gonna blow the whole scam.”

Many a head turned then to look at fellow retreat couple, Bethan and Roger, as they stepped out of their latest class hand in hand. Both of them open and closed their mouths like landed fish before looking to Ritter for an explanation. Of course, none came, and the next door to open revealed Laurie Redfern, shocked and appalled at the realisation that not only was a scam in place at her precious retreat but that one of her male employees was apparently sleeping with her darling husband.

A beep followed in the tannoy announcement, before more incriminating messages began to play. That was Eliot and Parker’s cue to get moving and so they did. Pushing out into the hall with bags in hand, they acted the part of the confused but ultimately disgusted couple, which wasn’t a huge stretch acting-wise given the circumstances.

“I am not stayin’ here another minute with these liars,” said Eliot, striding down the hall.

“I’m with you, honey,” Parker agreed. “Liars and cheats, every single one of them!” she said with conviction as they headed down the hall.

Eliot stopped so suddenly that she practically ran into the back of him and was about to complain when she realised why. There stood Roger and Bethan, still in a state of shock as to what was going on or how they were supposed to get out of it. The hitter met the liar’s eyes, and dropped the bags he carried in either hand.

“Before we go,” he said with a dangerous half a smile. “Can I have a word with you, son?” he beckoned for Roger to come with him around the corner.

Though the man would have liked to have refused or even run, there was really nowhere to go. Disgruntled retreat clients to the left and an angry Dr Ritter to his right, the fake husband of Bethan swallowed hard and took a few tentative steps towards ‘Paul’.

“Look, I know what you’re gonna say...” he said nervously, already putting his hands in the air.

“I’m not sayin’ anything.” Eliot shrugged like he was perfectly calm, before a switch flipped inside him and he hit Roger hard across the face, sending him easily to the floor.

A good kick to the ribs kept him down, only to be pulled up by the collar of his jacket to meet Eliot’s angry eyes.

“You don’t ever, ever lay a hand on my woman again,” he said in a low growl as he leant over the prone form of his victim. “And trust me, you ever pull any of the crap you tried here in any other place, I’ll find you, and you don’t want that,” he said definitely.

Roger looked petrified and in agony, as he should after he had done wrong, not least of which throwing Parker into a state of panic with his dirty old man moves. Eliot would’ve loved to knock this guy out, to beat him til he could barely stand but there wasn’t time right now and it would work against them for the con.

A moment later, the hitter was picking up his bags ready to leave, flipping his hair back out if his face almost as if nothing had happened. He turned to call to Parker that they should leave now, only to find her dropping her own luggage on the ground and staring daggers at Bethan where she had gone to Roger’s aid.

“She hit on you, didn’t she?” she checked with Eliot, never actually taking her eyes of her target.

“Well, yeah.” He shrugged. “But that’s not-”

Eliot never got a chance to finish whatever the hell it was he was going to say as Parker made a run at Bethan, tackling her to the ground and pinning her there.

“Get off me, you crazy bitch!” the other woman complained, her friendly persona long gone as she fought to get away.

Parker’s freakishly strong grip kept her in place as she laughed almost maniacally at her.

“If I ever see you again, especially near my man,” she warned her, “I’ll kill you,” she said, perhaps a little too seriously for Eliot’s liking and yet he couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his lips as he heard her words.

She was half copying his own threats to Roger, half being crazy as Parker ever was. The truth was, he kind of liked the fact she would call him her man and be so territorial about it. There was nothing bad about a woman who could stand up for herself either, and Eliot planned to teach her some better self defence and all when they got home. That thought bumped him out of his own private moment and back to reality as he realised they were supposed to be getting out of here, and now.

“Let’s go,” he advised Parker, grabbing her by the arm and levering her up onto her feet. “We’ve done our part of this,” he reminded her as they picked up their bags again and stormed out.

They left a scared Bethan, a bloodied Roger, and all kind of confusion in their wake, and made it out of sight just before all the cop cars showed up.

* * *

Nate and Sophie sat across the table from Natalie James, feeling that even after all they’d done the results were woefully inadequate. Nothing was going to bring back her husband that had died in vain, and yet they had done what they could to at least ensure those responsible for driving him to suicide would suffer, and never do this to anybody else.

“As I said, the culprit was never Laurie Redfern herself,” said the mastermind, gently pushing a folder of paperwork towards their client. “You see, her husband was working with one of the so-called psychologists, Dr Daniel Ritter.”

“And not just working together,” Sophie added. “They were seeing each other, having an affair,” she explained.

“Of course, the affair itself was none of our business, but we did have to use it to our advantage in order to expose them for their crimes,” explained Nate. “Along with this couple here, who were not at all legitimate,” he said, pointing to the photograph of Bethan and Roger in the folder.

“I met these people,” Natalie shook her head. “Are they not what they seemed?”

“Not at all,” the grifter sat in front of her said definitely, “but don’t worry they got what was coming to them, and in turn, so did Ritter.”

_Flashback..._

_“Before we go,” Eliot said with a dangerous half a smile. “Can I have a word with you, son?” he beckoned for Roger to come with him around the corner, out of sight of any security cameras._

_Though he would have liked to have refused or even run, there was really nowhere to go._

_Disgruntled retreat clients to the left and an angry Dr Ritter to his right, the fake husband of Bethan swallowed hard and took a few tentative steps towards ‘Paul’._

_“Look, I know what you’re gonna say...” he said nervously, already putting his hands in the air._

_“I’m not sayin’ anything.” Eliot shrugged like he was perfectly calm, before a switch flipped inside him and he hit Roger hard across the face, sending him easily to the floor._

_A good kick to the ribs kept him down, only to be pulled up by the collar of his jacket to meet Eliot’s angry eyes._

_You don’t ever, ever lay a hand on my woman again,” he said in a low growl as he leant over the prone form of his victim. “And trust me, you ever pull any of the crap you tried here in any other place, I’ll find you, and you don’t want that,” he said definitely. “Now, when the cops come in here, if you know what’s good for ya, you’ll tell them that Daniel Ritter hit you, got it?”_

“Once the police had Ritter arrested for assault, they checked his records and realised he had been working illegally, and not for the first time,” said Nate. “I imagine he’ll be locked away for a very long time given his rap sheet.”

“And what about the other guy?” asked Natalie. “Laurie Redfern’s husband?”

“Thanks to the evidence we had on him, the voicemail messages between these two,” explained Sophie, “it was enough for the police to arrest him on suspicion of fraud, and then of course there were the files.”

Nate smiled proudly at his grifter then, as they went on to explain further how they had set up Kendall...

_Flashback..._

_“What are you doing?” said a voice Nate didn’t recognise, but was certain in an instant must be Jeremy Kendall, even before Sophie ever said it._

_“Monsieur Kendall,” she said in a perfect French accent. “I am so, ‘ow you say, at the end of my wits!” she declared, kicking closed the drawer she hoped he hadn’t noticed was open as she all but flung herself into his arms._

_“Um... there, there,” the lawyer awkwardly patted the mysterious woman’s back as she appeared to sob on the shoulder of his expensive suit. “But you know you really shouldn’t be here...”_

_“This, I know,” said Sophie, her head coming up suddenly. “I should not need... er, service you offer, but my ‘usband, I have no trust for ‘im. He is not, ‘ow you say, a faithful man,” she explained, dabbing at tearful eyes with a handkerchief as she sat herself down on the edge of the desk._

_Rambling on with her eyes wide and chest pushed out to maximum capacity, the grifter was pretty sure she was doing a good job of distracting Jeremy Kendall, as she reached back towards the computer across the desk and removed the flashdrive from the USB port._

_Kendall had no idea that the drive was simultaneously downloading and uploading files, planting perfectly faked records and emails that Hardison had manufactured onto the hard-drive._

"Between the various sources of evidence, there is no question that Jeremy Kendall will be going to jail for his crimes of deception and fraud,” said Nate with a smile he hoped looked both sympathetic and triumphant at the same time.

“Are you sure the police will even look into Kendall?” asked Natalie with a worried frown. “I mean, he might try to run, or if Dr Ritter is his lover, he might try to protect him.”

“That’s true, though the evidence is pretty damning,” the mastermind assured her. “We did take out a little, er, insurance... just in case,” he told her, “but you don’t need to worry about that.”

“Absolutely not.” Sophie nodded her agreement. “In fact, we’d like for you to not have to worry about anything for a while.” She smiled as she picked up a briefcase from the floor and slid it onto the table.

Opening the case to face Natalie, she showed her the contents which caused the poor woman to gasp in surprise. There laid before her were several thousand pounds in crisp bills.

“I don’t understand.” She shook her head. “Where did this come from?”

_Flashback..._

_“I’d like to draw some money out of my joint account,” said Hardison stood by the counter at Boston National Bank in his best suit and tie._

_“Your name please, sir?” asked the clerk as she tapped at her computer keys._

_“Daniel Wrangler,” he told her with a genuine smile that no-one would ever doubt._

_The computer brought up details that Hardison had given it so he knew all the security answers and the signature he must fake in order to draw the money he asked for. In minutes the account was all but empty as the fake owner of it strolled out with his briefcase full of cash._

_Hardison checked the screen of his cell on the way out; Sophie had just it the button and all hell was breaking loose at the Twin Souls Retreat. That made him smile above all else - another job well done._

From outside the conference room, Parker watched with a smile as Natalie James was given the good news about Ritter and Kendall getting busted, and then being handed over a healthy amount of cash that would help her in raising her kids alone. The usually highly aware thief almost missed Eliot creeping up behind her, only she caught the movement of his reflection in the glass she was peering through. 

“Hey,” she said without turning, smiling wider as the hitter’s arms slid around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. 

“Hey, yourself,” he replied, his chin on her shoulder as he looked the same way she was, at their client shaking hands with Nate and Sophie, thanking them with tears in her eyes for all they had done. 

“Where’ve you been so long?” asked Parker then as she turned in Eliot’s arms and was a little startled to realise he had a cut above his eye. 

The first the hitter seemed to know of the injury was when his thief poked him where the blood was leaking out. 

“Damn,” he cursed. “I didn’t think I let him get a real hit in.” 

“Who?” Parker wanted to know as she reached across to the box of tissue on the table and pulled some out to clean up her man’s face. 

“Kendall.” He grinned then, unable to help himself, as he sat down on the edge of the table and pulled the blonde down onto his lap. “Nate wanted a guarantee the cops would pick him up” 

“So you took him to the police station?” guessed Parker, with a frown because she wasn’t sure it could be as simple as that. 

“Not exactly...” he admitted, reaching into his pocket for his cell and then showing her the display. “Me and Hardison might’ve done something else,” he told her. 

Parker giggled as she realised she was looking at Kendall, duck-taped to a telephone pole, in nothing but his underwear. There was what looked like a piece of paper stuck to his chest but it was impossible to see what it said. 

“That’s an envelope,” he explained off her questioning look. “Got copies of all the evidence against him inside and where to find the originals at his office.” 

“I love that!” she squealed with delight. “Ooh, we should show Natalie!” she enthused, looking for the client that was already on her way out the door. 

Eliot grabbed for Parker’s arm as she tried to chase her down, pulling her back towards him. 

“No, I don’t think she’d wanna see that, Parker,” he told her gently. “She’s got what she needs from us, the job is done. She has to go grieve now,” he reminded her. 

Parker’s smile fell right off her face when she realised what he meant. Natalie’s husband was dead, gone forever, and obviously she had loved him because they had been married and had two kids. Sure, they’d had to go to a couples retreat when they went through some bad stuff, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been in love. Her heart must be broken. 

All of a sudden, Eliot found his arms full of Parker, her lips crushed to his in a passionate kiss. Just when he thought he was going to pass out if she didn’t let him breathe, Parker broke the kiss and Eliot gasped in air. 

“Okay,” he breathed. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?” he asked curiously, wondering at the look in the little thief’s eyes that seemed to hold tears. 

“Don’t die,” she told him firmly, nothing more or less than those two very serious words. 

Eliot knew he ought to remind her that everyone dies eventually, that nothing is certain and their relationship wasn’t necessarily going to last forever. Looking into her eyes right now, he just couldn’t do it, because honestly in this moment, he wanted to give her forever, wanted to give her everything she ever asked for and then some. Eliot hadn’t felt this good in a long time, and he wasn’t about to say the wrong thing to let it end too soon. It just wasn’t worth the risk, not when the fact was he could just as easily be dead tomorrow, such was his type of work, as he ought to be pointing out to her. 

“I’m not planning on going anywhere for a long, long time, darlin’,” he promised her, pushing her hair back behind her ear. “I swear, for as long as I can be around, you’re stuck with me.” 

They were soon back to kissing, oblivious to the fact they were being watched through the glass by Nate and Sophie. 

“We sent them to a retreat that breaks up couples and they get together,” sighed the mastermind. “What were the odds?” 

“Honestly?” asked Sophie with a grin she couldn’t help. “Clearly a lot higher than we thought.” 

“Hey, what are we all starin’... oh,” Hardison’s cheerful questioning came to an abrupt halt as he came up beside the pair and peered through the glass. 

The sight that met his eyes did not thrill him, but honestly, it didn’t completely surprise him either. Eliot had been making cracks about getting girls much easier than the hacker ever could, and Hardison had known from Day One that the hitter stood way more chance with Parker if he chose to. The surprise came more from the fact Eliot wanted to get with her, given how crazy he often said she was. It also seemed as if they were going to be a couple, and he wasn’t just using Parker for one night stand or whatever, which meant Hardison didn’t feel the need to make threats to the hitter he would probably never be able to follow through! 

“Hardison,” said Sophie, her hand at his shoulder. “I know you like her, are you going to be okay?” she checked. 

“Sure, yeah, I like her,” he replied, still staring at the odd couple through the glass a moment more before glancing toward the other members of his team. “Look, Parker is sweet and all, insanely hot, and I’m not denyin’ it woulda been cool if she liked me instead o’ Eliot,” he admitted, “but I couldn’t really have handled her, y’know?” 

Nate opened his mouth to say something comforting, mostly because he figured that was what Sophie meant for him to do by the glare she was giving him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find the appropriate lie, since he was pretty sure his hacker was right in what he said. 

“Besides, look at her,” said Hardison as he gestured towards Parker and Eliot once again. “I ain’t seen her smile like that since we found that shipping crate full of cash at the docks, man!” he chuckled. “She’s happy, that’s what matters.” He shrugged, as he wandered away, just a little more upset and disappointed than he was letting on, Sophie knew. 

“If they make it, it’ll be a miracle,” said Nate then, shaking his head as he too walked away, no doubt looking for another drink. 

Sophie let out a sigh as she took one last look at a very happy Parker, smiling and giggling like a giddy loved-up teen, in Eliot’s arms. 

“If they make it, there might just be hope for all of us,” she whispered to herself, walking away at last and leaving the happy couple alone. 


End file.
